Disability representation that actually matters for families

You're flipping through the back-to-school catalogue, the one that landed in the letterbox this morning. Bright colours, happy kids, lunchboxes and sneakers and the promise of a fresh start. You scan every page. A redhead. Twins. A kid in a sports jersey. You keep looking, the way you always do, half-hoping this time will be different. It isn't. Your child isn't there. Not even close.

It's a small thing, people might say. Except it isn't small at all. It happens with the cereal box at breakfast, the holiday ad on the telly, the supermarket catalogue on the fridge. Everywhere you look, the world is telling a story about families. Your family isn't in it.

In Episode 35 of the Neurodivergent Pulse podcast, host Laetitia Andrac is joined by Simone Eyles, founder of Disinfluencer, a certified social enterprise on a mission to take disability mainstream through representation, talent and education. Driven by her lived experience as the mum of her son Josh, and her professional background in graphic design and marketing, Simone has built something that goes far beyond advocacy: a stock library, a talent roster, an agency arm, and e-learning for brand teams, all designed to create real pathways for disabled people in the creative industries. This conversation will change how you think about whose face belongs on the billboard.

Why disability visibility matters for everyday families

Disability visibility is not a niche concern. One in four Australians are disabled, and approximately 96% of those disabilities are invisible. Yet scan a supermarket catalogue, a back-to-school campaign, or a holiday ad, and you would have almost no idea any of them existed. When your child is neurodivergent or disabled, their absence from everyday imagery is not a coincidence. It is a pattern, and it compounds.

Simone knows this feeling firsthand. "I feel like as a mom, I don't see my kid or my family represented in any media or marketing or advertising or the news," she says. That absence is not neutral. For children who never see themselves reflected in the everyday images that surround them, the message is quiet but persistent: you are not part of the story everyone else gets to live in. For parents, it is one more layer of isolation on top of everything else they are already carrying. That isolation is documented at scale: in our research on neurodivergent families, nine in ten parents of neurodivergent children said their experience feels misunderstood or invisible, with more than half saying others simply cannot see or understand what their daily life involves.

Representation has long been treated as a nice-to-have, a feel-good extra that brands might sprinkle in when they feel like it. Simone's argument is simpler and more urgent: it is a basic part of belonging, and right now, it is missing.

What can we do to increase disability visibility

Disinfluencer was born from a specific frustration: that disability only ever seemed to appear in the media through one lens. Simone kept noticing what was absent from the coverage around her.

You hear disability in the media through a lens of advocacy, especially now with all the NDIS changes and neglect and abuse and whatever. And those stories are valid and important, but where's the light to that shade?

The spark came from a conversation about ableist lyrics in popular music, which made Simone ask why the news cycle around disability was always that kind of story, and never about the everyday, ordinary, joyful parts of disabled life. She started a podcast. Then she cornered the founder of Birdsnest in a car park and asked why their campaigns had no diverse talent. The answer she kept hearing from brands was not indifference. It was: "We'd love to. But where do we go?"

That gap became Disinfluencer. And at the centre of it was her son Josh, whose face appeared on a billboard with a line that stopped people in their tracks: "I would buy from him."

The hidden cost of being invisible in everyday marketing

Invisibility in marketing is not just about the images.

It signals to disabled people and their families that they are not considered consumers, community members, or participants in everyday culture. Simone makes the commercial case plainly: "People with disabilities are consumers like everybody else. And no one is marketing to them, and I see that as a huge gap and a huge opportunity."

She illustrates this with a story that will land immediately for any parent who knows the reality of safe foods. Josh loves meat pies. They are a staple, a reliable constant in a life that involves a lot of medical complexity and sensory specificity. Meat pies are marketed everywhere: at the footy, at sports events, to the presumed mainstream family. But Simone's family, like many families navigating disability and neurodivergence, does not fit that picture.

"I have bought enough meat pies to fill seven stadiums and feed every person in that stadium with a meat pie, but I have not seen that marketed," she says. It is funny, and it is also a precise illustration of how completely brands miss the families who are right in front of them. The cheese stick. The nuggets. The particular brand of crackers that makes the difference between a child eating lunch and not eating at all. These are the products that families like Simone's buy consistently and loyally, and no one is speaking to them.

The scale of these families' daily lives is worth pausing on. Research with Australian families shows that parents of neurodivergent children spend around 33 hours each week on caregiving, with nearly 10.5 of those hours going to emotional regulation, advocacy, and administration alone. These are not peripheral consumers. They are people doing an enormous amount of invisible work, buying the meat pies, the crackers, and the safe-food staples every single week.

Beyond the commercial gap, there is a cultural one. When children grow up never seeing themselves in the imagery that surrounds them, and when the broader community grows up never seeing disabled people in ordinary, everyday contexts, ableism is quietly reinforced. Exposure matters. Familiarity matters. The absence of both has consequences that ripple far beyond any single catalogue or campaign. Research consistently shows that 64% of parents raising neurodivergent children often feel exhausted, and 64% feel overwhelmed, rates significantly higher than those reported by parents of neurotypical children. Invisibility in culture does not sit separately from that exhaustion. It is part of it.

What authentic disability representation actually looks like

Authentic disability representation means casting disabled people as the hero of the story, not the side character. When disability does appear in mainstream campaigns, it tends to appear in a particular way: on the periphery, as an afterthought, never as the main character. Simone is direct about this. "Not only do we not have the representation, but if you do see someone with a disability in the mix, they're usually on the outside, like they're kind of tacked in on the side. They're not the hero of the campaign."

Casting directors compound the problem. When they come to Simone looking for disabled talent, they often ask for someone with a hearing aid, or someone with a prosthetic. They want disability to be visually legible, immediately identifiable, a clear marker that signals inclusion has been achieved. This approach erases the majority of disabled experience and reduces representation to a visual checkbox rather than a genuine commitment to seeing people as people.

Simone's approach at Disinfluencer is deliberately different. Her talent roster leads with names, not diagnoses. "This is Katie, this is Sam, this is Josh." When a casting brief comes in, she reads it for age, location, vibe, and fit, and puts her people forward on those terms. "I'm not just here to cast you in the disability role, I want my people to be cast like their peers in the main character roles."

That shift, from disability as a category to disabled people as individuals with names and personalities and creative presence, is what separates authentic representation from sprinkle-and-feel-good inclusion that changes nothing.

Invisible disability awareness: the kids who don't 'look' disabled

Invisible disability awareness starts with understanding the scale: approximately 96% of disabilities are not visually apparent, and these are the people most consistently erased from mainstream media and marketing. This is where so many neurodivergent and chronically ill children and adults fall through the cracks, told repeatedly that they do not look disabled, do not look autistic, do not look sick enough for their experience to be taken seriously.

Simone's son Josh is a vivid illustration of what invisible disability actually looks like, and what it costs to keep explaining it.

You look at my Josh, and he just looks like a teenage kid, but take his shirt off, he's got two tubes in his chest, he's got scar tissue all down one side of his body that can't no longer be accessed, including his arm. He's got a hockey stick scar from his transplant.

Josh is autistic, intellectually disabled, currently in organ failure, and having dialysis. He attends a support school and needs full-time care. He is also, as Simone is careful to say, a teenager who is particular about his clothes, influenced by pop culture, and into certain music. He is doing most of the things other teenage kids do. He is just doing them in a body and a life that the world has not yet learned to see.

Representation that only makes room for visible disability markers continues to tell kids like Josh, and the families who love them, that their experience does not count. Making the invisible visible means including them too, not as an edge case, but as part of the picture.

What changes when we gather

Something shifts when disabled people are in a room together and do not have to perform or explain themselves. Simone has seen it happen on inclusive shoot days, and it is one of the most hopeful things she describes in the episode.

When you get a whole bunch of people with disabilities together that don't have to explain themselves or justify themselves or tell their horror story or their life story, they're just kind of on the job doing their thing, that magic happens.

That magic points to something families are asking for directly. According to Understanding Zoe's latest findings, nearly half of parents say their greatest priority is simply for their child to feel safe and accepted as they are, and 39% want neurodivergence to be seen as a difference, not a deficit. Belonging, not a diagnosis label or a visual marker, is what families are actually reaching for.

The impact does not stay in the room. Brand teams who spend a shoot day alongside disabled talent, watching them work and getting to know them as people, carry that experience back into their networks. One person on set becomes a conversation at a dinner table, a different question asked in a briefing, a small shift in how a team thinks about who belongs in their campaigns. Change at this scale is slow, but it is real.

Laetitia reflects on this in the episode, describing the Yellow Ladybugs Conference in Melbourne, an event for autistic girls, women, and non-binary people where stimming in the room is normal and people can look after themselves without apology. "I wish it was more mainstream," she says. The contrast with most conferences, where sensory rooms are rare and neurodivergent people have to mask to participate, is stark.

Belonging in shared spaces matters. So does having tools that make your child visible to the people around them at home and at school. Understanding Zoe was built for exactly this: to turn observations, reports, and the patterns parents notice every day into something actionable, a profile that honours who your child actually is rather than reducing them to a deficit list. Being seen starts at home, and it extends outward from there.

What you can do this week

You have more influence than you might think. Simone's message to parents and disabled adults is to stop waiting for brands to figure this out on their own, and to start using your consumer voice. "We need to start kind of rallying and telling our brands like, 'We love you,' like, 'Market to us.' Like, 'We are here.' Like, 'Don't ignore us.'"

And if your child or family member loves being in front of the camera, there is a real pathway waiting for them. "If you have a dream, if you love being in front of the camera, like, you know, Disinfluencer is definitely a pathway for you to explore those, explore that for yourself and your family or your kids." No experience required.

Here are seven concrete things you can do right now:

• Tell the brands you love that you want to be marketed to. Send a message, leave a comment, write to their customer team. Brands respond to consumer signals, and your voice is one of them.

• Notice where your family is missing and name it out loud. The catalogue, the cereal box, the school newsletter: when you see the gap, say so. To other parents, to the school, to the brand.

• Follow @disinfluencer.co on Instagram and share their content. Disability visibility grows when more people see it and pass it on.

• Sign up to the Disinfluencer talent roster if your child or family member wants to be in front of the camera. The process is straightforward, and Simone says she does not say no to anyone.

• Seek out and create community spaces where neurodivergent and disabled people do not have to explain themselves. Whether that is a local group, an online community, or an event like Yellow Ladybugs, the belonging that happens in those spaces matters.

• Push back on tokenism when you see it. Ask whether the disabled person in a campaign is the hero of the story or tacked onto the edge. The question itself starts a conversation.

• Reframe representation as a commercial opportunity, not a charity ask, when you speak with brands, schools, or workplaces. Disabled people are consumers, students, and community members. Marketing to them is good business.

Making the invisible visible: disability representation that matters

Your child being absent from the catalogue is not a small thing, and it is not your fault. It is the result of a system that has not yet caught up with the reality of who is actually out there, buying the meat pies, wearing the clothes, watching the shows, and participating in culture just like everyone else.

Disability representation in media is not a feel-good extra. It is belonging. It is identity. It is the difference between a child growing up knowing they are part of the story and one who grows up scanning every image for a face that looks like theirs and never finding it. Simone Eyles is building the infrastructure to change that, one shoot, one billboard, one casting brief at a time. Small acts of visibility add up. Your child deserves to be the hero of the story, not the side character, and there are people working hard to make that happen.

If you want to make your own child more visible to the people around them, from teachers to therapists to extended family, try Understanding Zoe free for 7 days and see what it looks like to have your child's strengths, needs, and patterns held in one place, in language that actually helps.

Frequently asked questions

Why is disability representation in media important?

Disability representation in media matters because visibility shapes belonging. When disabled and neurodivergent children never see themselves in the everyday images that surround them, the message is quiet but persistent: you are not part of the story everyone else gets to live in. For families, that absence compounds isolation. For the broader community, growing up without exposure to disabled people in ordinary contexts quietly reinforces ableism. Representation is not a feel-good extra. It is a basic part of belonging.

What represents invisible disability?

Invisible disability includes conditions that are not visually apparent, such as autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, chronic illness, and mental health conditions. Invisible disability awareness matters because approximately 96% of disabilities in Australia fall into this category, meaning most disabled people do not use a wheelchair or have a visible physical difference. These are the people most consistently erased from mainstream media and marketing, told they do not look disabled enough for their experience to count.

What does good autism representation in media actually look like?

Good autism representation in media shows autistic people as full human beings with names, personalities, and everyday lives, not as a diagnosis or a visual checkbox. It means casting autistic people as the hero of the story, not a background character tacked onto the edge of a campaign. It includes the 96% of autistic people whose disability is not visually apparent, and it reflects the reality that autistic people are consumers, community members, and participants in culture, just like everyone else.

What does authentic disability representation look like in advertising?

Authentic disability representation in advertising means leading with the person, not the diagnosis. It means casting disabled talent in main character roles, not peripheral ones, and resisting the urge to make disability visually legible through props like hearing aids or prosthetics. It means including people with invisible disabilities, not just those whose conditions are immediately identifiable. Organisations like Disinfluencer are building the infrastructure to make this possible, connecting brands with diverse disabled talent on terms that go beyond tokenism.

TL;DR

Disability visibility is missing from everyday media and marketing, and that absence has a real cost for neurodivergent and disabled children and their families. Simone Eyles, founder of Disinfluencer, argues that disabled people are consumers like everyone else, and that the gap between their numbers (one in four Australians) and their visibility in mainstream imagery is both a belonging failure and a commercial opportunity brands are ignoring. With 96% of disabilities invisible, authentic disability representation means casting disabled talent as the hero of the story, not tacking them onto the edge. Parents can act now: tell the brands you love that you want to be marketed to, and explore Disinfluencer's talent roster if your child or family member loves being in front of the camera.

Connect with Simone Eyles

• Website: disinfluencer.co

• Instagram: @disinfluencer.co

• LinkedIn: Simone Eyles on LinkedIn