Contents
Child Disability Allowance : Contents

Constant care and attention

To determine whether the child needs constant care and attention, the child must meet 1 of the following requirements:

  • needs frequent attention from another person for their bodily functions

due to the child's disability they need recurrent or regular attention to perform bodily functions such as bathing, toileting, dressing or eating.

or

  • needs substantially more attention and supervision than is normally required by a child

as the child has a physical, sensory, psychiatric or intellectual disability, they require care and supervision over and above that normally required by a child of the same age and gender.

or

  • needs regular supervision from another person so they do not harm themselves or others

due to the child's disability, they need supervision of their day to day activities to avoid significant danger to themselves or others.

This extra care must be permanent or be needed for more than 12 months.

For more information see:

Legislation

  • Meaning of child with a serious disability section 79 Social Security Act 2018
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A person with an intellectual disability has intellectual functioning significantly below average. They may also have limitations with their behaviour (either behavioural problems or difficulty with managing day to day tasks or both).

An intellectual disability is not an illness or a disease and there may be various causes, for example; genetic, chromosomal abnormality or injury. One example of intellectual disability is Down Syndrome.