Weekly Edition - 6.24.25

Lawsuits, Little Lobbyists, and Life-Changing Innovations Define a Pivotal Week for Disability Rights

This week brought legal battles and breakthrough innovations for the disability community. The National Association of the Deaf sued the White House for eliminating sign language interpreters from press briefings, while "Little Lobbyists"—children with complex medical needs—lobbied senators against Republican Medicaid cuts. Meanwhile, researchers explored using biomarkers to personalize stem cell therapy for autism, and a 12-year-old with Down syndrome trialed a revolutionary skateboard harness system. The week highlighted ongoing access fights alongside promising technological advances.

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The Big Idea

This week’s featured story: a closer look at developments making waves in the I/DD community

🥊The White House is getting sued again—this time over something you might not expect. The National Association of the Deaf filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration on May 28th after the White House abruptly stopped providing American Sign Language interpreters at press briefings when President Trump returned to office in January 2025. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names President Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as defendants. Two deaf men are joining NAD in the suit: Derrick Ford, 36, from Anderson, Indiana, whose primary language is ASL and who has concerns about missing information on executive orders and Social Security, and Matthew Bonn, 48, from Germantown, Maryland, who stopped watching White House press briefings in February because he couldn't understand them.

According to the NAD, at least several hundred thousand people in the U.S. communicate mainly in ASL, and many deaf and hard of hearing people know little English, making closed captioning insufficient for true accessibility. The irony? This isn't the first time NAD has sued over this exact issue. In 2020, the organization took the first Trump White House to federal court during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a federal judge ordered the White House to provide qualified interpreters for all coronavirus briefings. After that legal victory, the White House began providing ASL interpreters for all press briefings, a practice that continued through the Biden administration but abruptly ended in January 2025 despite NAD's repeated requests.

The timing coincides with Trump's first-day executive order eliminating Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility programs from the federal government. Legal experts say failure to provide interpreting services may violate Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. As NAD's Interim CEO Bobbie Beth Scoggins stated, "Deaf and hard of hearing Americans have the right to the same access to White House information as everyone else".

If you would like to read more, check out the original article.

Moments That Matter

Celebrating the everyday victories, breakthrough achievements, and inspiring individuals

🛹Sometimes innovation looks like a harness and a skateboard. Twelve-year-old Ollie, who has Down's syndrome, trialed a world-first skatepark aid that allows him to participate in skateboarding without needing his parents' help. The harness system, created by the Cerebra Innovation Centre at Exist Skatepark in Swansea, helps Ollie maintain balance on a standard skateboard with handles he can hold onto. Dr. Ross Head from the Innovation Centre said the idea came from seeing a video of Ollie skating with his mother holding him up due to balance issues, and the team wanted to tackle the "social stigma" of using different equipment by creating a skatepark adaptation that allows him to "have the same skateboard as everybody else". Ollie's mother Jilly noted the experience was "much more inclusive" than other sports where he needs specialist equipment, allowing him to join in with other children. The charity Cerebra unveiled the system for public use, with Dr. Head saying it could accommodate around 30 people a day and work for anyone learning to skate.

If you would like to read more, check out the original article.

Across The Nation

From Capitol Hill to community centers: the national updates shaping our collective future

👶When 1-year-olds become lobbyists, you know something's wrong. About two dozen children with serious medical needs and their families crisscrossed the Capitol this week, urging senators to vote against the Republican bill that would cut deeply into Medicaid to help pay for large tax cuts benefiting businesses and the richest Americans. Among them was Landry Bell, a 1-year-old with Down syndrome, wearing a bright blue "Little Lobbyists" T-shirt as his mother explained how Medicaid cuts would devastate their family. The group, which formed in 2017 during Trump's first term to successfully fight against efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, scored meetings with several senators including Susan Collins and John Fetterman. While the measure wouldn't directly impact services for medically complex children, families fear the proposed cuts could reverberate through the program, making care more difficult and costly to obtain. As one mother noted, even with private insurance, her family was on the verge of bankruptcy from hospital bills until they were approved for Medicaid coverage.

If you would like to read more, check out the original article.

Community Catalyst

Local Innovation Worth Spreading: See how local changes are creating ripples of progress nationwide

🔬The future of autism treatment might be hiding in your blood. Researchers are exploring how biomarkers—molecules, genes, proteins, or imaging results that clinicians use to diagnose diseases and test treatment effectiveness—could revolutionize stem cell therapy for autism. These biological indicators could help identify which children might benefit most from stem cell treatment, determine what type of stem cells to use, and track whether the therapy is working. Studies have shown that some children who undergo stem cell therapy improve in language functions, socializing, and behavior, with treatments using mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood stem cells that enhance brain neuron connections.

The approach could move autism treatment beyond trial-and-error to precision medicine, offering better outcomes, lower risks, and cost-efficiency. However, significant challenges remain, including the lack of standardized biomarkers for autism and the biological complexity of the condition, which makes it difficult to identify reliable markers. Researchers note that autism is multifactorial, meaning biomarker profiles can vary widely even among children with similar symptoms. As machine learning and AI advance to help analyze biomarker data, experts anticipate a future where stem cell therapy combined with biomarkers could significantly enhance the lives of people with autism.

If you would like to read more, check out the original article.