If you’re looking for the best TED talks on disability, start with Stella Young on inspiration porn, Judith Heumann on civil rights, and Sinéad Burke on everyday design. This selection brings together ten disabled speakers, with direct viewing links and enough context to help you choose what to watch.
A good talk can be funny, uncomfortable or useful on a very ordinary Tuesday. It can also leave an audience congratulating itself for caring while changing very little. I’m interested in the talks that give us something more demanding to think about: who gets hired, whose choices count, and who keeps being asked to wait outside.
These are editorial recommendations, rather than a ranking by views. The list includes TED conference talks, independently organised TEDx talks and a video from TED’s The Way We Work series. Some are older; Jessica Irwin’s TEDxSydney video was published in March 2026. Each offers a different way into the subject.
Choose a talk by subject
| Speaker | Start here for |
|---|---|
| Stella Young | Inspiration porn and low expectations |
| Judith Heumann | Disability rights and collective action |
| Haben Girma | Access, education and the right to choose |
| Maysoon Zayid | Comedy and who gets cast on screen |
| Sinéad Burke | The assumptions built into everyday objects |
| Jessica Irwin | Communicating with nonverbal people |
| Sue Austin | Mobility aids, art and freedom |
| Temple Grandin | Different ways of thinking and learning |
| Aimee Mullins | Language and the expectations adults pass on |
| Tiffany Yu | Practical changes at work |
1. Stella Young: I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much
TEDxSydney, 2014 · About 9 minutes
Start here. Australian comedian and journalist Stella Young takes apart the habit of applauding disabled people for ordinary life. Being congratulated for getting out of bed reveals how little the person offering the compliment expected in the first place.
Her account of teaching a class is particularly telling. A student expects a motivational speech because the teacher uses a wheelchair. He has encountered disabled people as a lesson for others, rather than as people doing a job.
Young’s argument gives this entire list a useful test: are we listening to what a speaker says, or collecting someone else’s life as a reason to feel better about our own? Admiration is easy. Examining the expectation underneath it takes more work.
Watch Stella Young’s talk on TED. For more context, read URevolution’s article on Stella Young and inspiration porn.
2. Judith Heumann: Our fight for disability rights — and why we’re not done yet
TEDxMidAtlantic, 2016 · About 17 minutes
Judith Heumann describes exclusion that was treated as perfectly reasonable by the institutions doing it. Her story begins with being refused entry to school and develops into an account of disabled people organising to change the terms of public life.
At its centre is the Section 504 sit-in, when activists occupied a US federal building for almost a month. The talk makes room for the effort behind rights that can otherwise seem to have arrived neatly packaged in legislation.
Pair it with Young. One challenges the flattering stories told about disabled people; the other shows what disabled people achieved together when praise was nowhere near enough. It is a useful choice for a history class or a workplace discussion that needs to move beyond awareness.
Watch Judith Heumann’s talk on TED.
3. Haben Girma: Why I work to remove access barriers for students with disabilities
TEDxBaltimore, 2014 · About 15 minutes
A cafeteria menu sounds like a small thing until everyone else can choose dinner and you cannot. Deafblind lawyer Haben Girma explains how her college agreed to email menus in a format she could read, then repeatedly forgot.
When she challenged this, the response treated access as a favour for which she should be grateful. Her account of using the Americans with Disabilities Act to change that response is specific to her US college experience. The underlying question travels: does an organisation build access into its service, or leave someone dependent on whoever happens to remember?
This is a sharp introduction to the difference between admission and participation. Getting through the school gates does not settle whether a student can use what is inside.
Watch Haben Girma’s TEDx talk and read her transcript on her website.
4. Maysoon Zayid: I got 99 problems ... palsy is just one
TEDWomen, 2013 · About 14 minutes
Maysoon Zayid is very funny. She also has something precise to say about the entertainment industry’s enthusiasm for disability stories when the part goes to a nondisabled actor.
The comedian, who has cerebral palsy, brings her experiences as an Arab-American woman into the same conversation. Family, ambition and casting decisions sit alongside disability because that is how a life works. A diagnosis does not politely occupy a separate compartment.
Watch for who gets to be ordinary on screen, who gets to work, and who gets praised for a performance of somebody else’s body. The jokes make the talk inviting; the casting question gives it a useful edge for anyone making or commissioning media.
Watch Maysoon Zayid’s talk on TED.
5. Sinéad Burke: Why design should include everyone
TEDNYC, 2017 · About 10 minutes
A lock you cannot reach is a fairly conclusive answer to whether a room was designed with you in mind. Sinéad Burke, a little person, starts with details many people can use without giving them a thought.
She follows those details through public spaces and fashion. Even something labelled accessible can fail a person whose needs were absent from the design brief.
That makes this an especially useful talk for designers and anyone responsible for premises. Take one object from your own day and ask who can use it independently. Then ask someone whose experience differs from yours. Our article on inclusive design and invisible disability develops that question beyond the visible features of a space.
Watch Sinéad Burke’s talk on TED.
6. Jessica Irwin: How to Communicate With a Nonverbal Person
TEDxSydney · Video published March 2026 · About 6 minutes
Photographer and speaker Jessica Irwin uses a communication device. Her talk addresses the assumptions people make when someone does not communicate through speech, and what those assumptions can mean in a hospital.
She draws on her experience around hip surgery to explain why communication deserves attention before an emergency makes it urgent. This is a valuable addition to a list that could otherwise let access mean only buildings and employment.
For healthcare teams, the discussion should lead to the person in front of them: how do they communicate, and what do they need to take part in decisions? Irwin’s experience cannot prescribe one method for every nonverbal person. It gives viewers a reason to stop assuming they already know.
Watch Jessica Irwin’s talk on the official TEDx Talks YouTube channel.
7. Sue Austin: Deep sea diving ... in a wheelchair
TEDxWomen, 2012 · About 9 minutes
Sue Austin describes the freedom her power chair gave her, alongside other people’s increasingly restrictive view of her life. Their response did not match her experience.
Her underwater wheelchair artwork makes that mismatch visible. Scuba equipment extends what a person can do and is readily associated with adventure. A wheelchair can extend what a person can do too, yet attracts a very different set of assumptions.
Give the images some attention. Austin works through art, rather than asking the audience to accept another argument about the right words. Her work also offers a welcome change of pace in this list: disabled creativity deserves attention in its own right.
Watch Sue Austin’s talk on TED.
8. Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds
TED, 2010 · About 19 minutes
Temple Grandin describes her visual thinking and argues for education that recognises different ways of learning. She connects that argument to practical work and the opportunities children have to discover their interests.
For teachers and parents, the useful question is whether a classroom gives someone a fair chance to show what they understand. A spoken answer, a drawing and a practical demonstration may reveal different things.
Keep the scope clear. Grandin is describing her experience and viewpoint; she does not represent every autistic person. Nor should a case for inclusion depend on someone possessing an unusual talent or becoming useful to an employer. A person’s entitlement to support survives an entirely unremarkable school report.
Watch Temple Grandin’s talk on TED.
9. Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity
TEDMED, 2009 · About 22 minutes
Aimee Mullins begins with a thesaurus entry for disability and the bleak assumptions packed into it. From there, the athlete and actor considers what language teaches adults to expect of children, and children to expect of themselves.
The title can sound like an invitation to extract a life lesson from hardship. Read alongside Young’s talk, it raises a more interesting discussion about who gets to describe their own experience. Mullins can make meaning from her life without that becoming an obligation for somebody else.
Listen for the responsibility of adults who set expectations. Keep encouragement separate from the idea that determination will remove every barrier. A child should not have to become exceptional to deserve a decent chance.
Watch Aimee Mullins’s talk on TED.
10. Tiffany Yu: How to help employees with disabilities thrive
The Way We Work, 2023 · About 5 minutes
Tiffany Yu brings the conversation into the working week. She addresses assumptions about colleagues, access and flexibility, including the mistake of deciding what someone can do without asking them.
Her examples include a workplace assessment that considered equipment and ways of working early on. That gives managers something concrete to discuss: how would a new employee discover what support is available, and how much effort would they have to spend asking for it?
This is the shortest selection here and a sensible starting point for a team meeting. Leave time afterwards to identify an actual change, with someone responsible for making it. Otherwise the meeting has produced another meeting.
Watch Tiffany Yu’s video on TED.
If you’re watching with other people
Send the link in advance and ask what access people need. TED offers interactive transcripts for nearly all talks in its library; availability and languages vary. For TEDx videos hosted on YouTube, check the particular video’s captions rather than assuming they are accurate. Haben Girma’s linked page includes her transcript.
A transcript may not explain an image or demonstration. For a visually led talk such as Austin’s, plan how people who cannot see the footage will get that context. TED’s guide to finding transcripts explains the available controls.
Choose one question that relates to something the group can change. Who has to ask repeatedly for access? Whose expertise gets overlooked? Give disabled participants room to contribute without appointing them unpaid explainers for everyone else.
Then return to the decision you made a week later. A watched video is easy to count. Whether anyone can participate more fully afterwards is the part worth checking.
