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National Disability Radio

National Disability Radio

Written by: National Disability Rights Network
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 An insightful podcast by the National Disability Rights Network offering advocacy tools, heartfelt storytelling, and real-world policy insights—accessible whether you’re an advocate in the field or just someone who cares deeply about disability rights.© 2020 National Disability Rights Network Economics Hygiene & Healthy Living Management Management & Leadership Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences
Episodes
  • National Disability Radio: Alden’s AuDHD Journey

    National Disability Radio: Alden’s AuDHD Journey
    Nov 14 2025
    Alden Blevins, the newest host of National Disability Radio, has a personal journey with autism and ADHD that has shaped her perspective on disability rights and advocacy. Alden was misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression as a child, and did not receive the correct diagnosis of autism and ADHD until her late 20s. Alden describes her experience navigating the workplace and healthcare systems as an autistic individual, emphasizing the challenges of “passing” as neurotypical and the importance of self-accommodating. We also discuss the evolving public perception and representation of autism, noting that while awareness has increased, the diversity of the autistic experience is often overlooked. When it comes to policy and advocacy, Alden highlights the need for greater autistic representation and input, as the perspectives of those with high support needs or who use augmentative communication are often left out of importangt onversations To recharge and find joy, the PodSquad turns to their interests, particularly music and pop culture, which play an important role in ever important their self-advocate self-care regime. To view or download the full transcript, click here. Michelle Bishop: How could we not talk about Taylor getting engaged and dropping a new album? Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yes. Oh my gosh. Michelle Bishop: Taylor, she understood the assignment and she was like, “The world needs me to bring them joy right now.” Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yes. Alden Blevins: Oh, absolutely. I’ve been totally enjoying some good escapism by entering into the Taylor verse, and that’s been helpful for my mental health as of late, so. Michelle Bishop: Maybe we should do our podcast. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Welcome to National Disability Radio. Alden Blevins: Let’s go ahead and do that. So I’m the newbie here in the mix today. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yay. Alden Blevins: Yes. But I will welcome everybody to National Disability Radio and introduce myself and say that I am Alden Blevins. I am a new addition to the NDRN team. I started last year around November. Before that, I happened to work at the Virginia Protection and Advocacy organization, disAbility Law Center of Virginia for two years. So I have learned a lot from the PNAs in the disability community, and I’m super stoked to be here today. Michelle Bishop: Love it. Welcome. Alden Blevins: Yeah. Michelle Bishop: Stephanie, were you going to introduce yourself? Stephanie Flynt McEben: I was just going to say, Alden, we are super excited to have you as a producer and host. So yeah, we are super excited to have you with us on our pod squad team. But yeah, I’m Stephanie Flynt McEben and I am NDRN’s public policy analyst and I guess it’s one third now, one third of your podcast hosts. Michelle Bishop: One third, one third. I’m Michelle Bishop. I’m the manager for voter access and engagement, and I usually have to introduce myself first every single episode, so looking- Alden Blevins: Oh, wow. I didn’t mean to steal your thunder. I just wanted us to get into the mix. Michelle Bishop: And I know you’ve got hella professional experience, but also one of the things we highlight on National Disability Radio is also the lived experience of having a disability and why that is also as important and as valid and useful as the professional experience and data and that sort of thing. Alden Blevins: Absolutely. So I have my own experience with disabilities. I identify, as the kids say, AuDHD, meaning I both have autism and ADHD, and that has shaped so much about how I moved through the world. Other than that, some more lived experience I have is that I started my career out working in public education, which just happened to teach me a lot about the systems and the barriers that everyday people face. And in addition to my own lived experience with disability, my mom is also a power chair user. Sometimes she uses a walker. She uses various mobility aids. She’s had a disability for most of my life growing up, so while I bring my own perspective, I’ve also got a lot of experience with a different type of disability through my experiences growing up with my mom. Michelle Bishop: I’m sorry, did you call it AuDHD? I’ve never heard that before. That’s amazing. Alden Blevins: Yes. AuDHD. A-U-D-H-D. Michelle Bishop: Yes. I love it, I love it. We’re already learning new things. This episode is about you as our new pro host. So back us all the way up. Let’s let our listeners get to know you a little bit. Can you talk about your journey to joining NDRN? Alden Blevins: Yeah, absolutely. So like I mentioned, I did start out working in public education and from there I moved into nonprofit work first with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Virginia. And then again with the Virginia PNA, the disAbility Law Center of Virginia. I feel like each step to getting to NCRN has been a new layer of experiencing how disability rights touches every ...
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    Less than 1 minute
  • National Disability Radio: And Then There Were 2

    National Disability Radio: And Then There Were 2
    Sep 10 2025
    Jack is going off to law school. So the gang sits down to reminisce on his time at NDRN, share a few stories from behind the scenes, and hear a joke from Stephanie that gets a good laugh out of us. Full transcript available at: https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndr-august25/ Jack Rosen: Like we have any sort of agenda for today, so just sort of going to get what I get. Turn that into a podcast, I guess. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Sure. Michelle Bishop: And that’s different from any other episode because… Jack Rosen: It’s not, it genuinely, I guess is not, I suppose at some point we’d have a guest and questions we thought we should ask them. Michelle Bishop: Oh. Stephanie Flynt McEben: I’m the guest and I have the questions. I don’t know. Jack Rosen: I’m pretty sure you’re not the guest. Michelle Bishop: It’s fine. Stephanie Flynt McEben: I’m pretty sure Jack is the guest. Jack Rosen: I’m sort of the guest. Stephanie Flynt McEben: What? Michelle Bishop: Wait what? Stephanie Flynt McEben: This episode is for Jack, isn’t it? Jack Rosen: It would be very funny if we just made it the Stephanie episode, even though we’ve done like two of those. Stephanie Flynt McEben: No. That would make me feel like such a bad chicken nugget. Jack Rosen: Even though we’ve already done- Stephanie Flynt McEben: This is all about you. Michelle Bishop: We already did a Stephanie wedding episode. Jack Rosen: We did a whole one about you getting married. Stephanie Flynt McEben: We’ve already done a bunch of episodes about me doing chicken-nuggety things like, come on. Michelle Bishop: Oh, that reminds me. My mom wants to hear about the legally blind Uber driver. Stephanie Flynt McEben: I forgot that I slipped that into an episode. Michelle Bishop: Yeah, she’s still listening and she has some follow-up questions. Stephanie Flynt McEben: I love this. Michelle Bishop: Well pack might have to address that at some point. Jack Rosen: Well, Stephanie, do you want to address it? I mean, let’s give the people what they want, I guess. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yeah, I guess we can give the people what they want. Michelle Bishop: Yeah, we have one listener, so we should probably follow up on that for her. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And Carol, thank you so much for being a dedicated, loyal listener to this wonderful podcast. So I will give a slighter Cliff Notes version just so it doesn’t take up the whole hour. So I am waiting for a car outside of, I can’t remember which Metro stop it was, but I had to go get something, and so I just figured I’d take an Uber home from the Metro because that particular Metro was a lot easier to get a car and it would only be a 20-minute ride. Okay, fine. This is what I’ll do. And so I get out of the Metro station, I’m trying to find my driver or whatever, yada, yada, and I can’t even remember his name. Maybe we should just call him Bob for anonymity. I am bad at saying that too. But yeah, so Bob pulls up in some sort of Toyota of some sort and I get in the car and we start driving and I noticed that I’m hearing a lot more horns, but I’m just not thinking about it because it’s rush hour DC traffic. And then we started, he was like, “You know, I’ll be honest with you, I’m legally blind. I can only see out of one eye.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” And I’m just trying to think of some of the things that he said, but he said different things that were essentially low vision, blind hacks or what have you. I’m trying to remember the specific hacks, but honestly, when he said, “I’m legally blind,” I was kind of like, “Huh, Jesus, take the wheel. Please get me home safe.” So it was a wild ride. No, that was not an intended pun but we can make it a pun. Jack Rosen: So you’re saying he might’ve had limited vision in the one eye? Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yeah, potentially. But, he said that he was only legally blind, he was legally blind or totally blind out of one eye, and then he could see out of the other eye just fine. Jack Rosen: You don’t sound convinced he could see just fine out of the other eye. Stephanie Flynt McEben: I’m not. I don’t want to say it. Jack has to say it. Jack Rosen: I don’t want to say it. Michelle, kick us off as always. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yeah, Michelle, you do that. Yeah. Michelle Bishop: Why is it always me? Okay. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Because you’re such a good public speaker and I’m really sad right now. Jack Rosen: We’re already dealing with enough change. I don’t want to deal with more. Could you please kick us off? Michelle Bishop: On this very special episode of National Disability Radio, we say goodbye to our pro-host extraordinaire, Jack Rosen, who is leaving NDRN to go to law school. Yay, Jack. We need an applause. We’ve never had an applause. Can we- Stephanie Flynt McEben: I know I keep saying that. Oh my gosh. But seriously, Jack, we’re going to miss you so,...
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    32 mins
  • National Disability Radio: Senator Tom Harkin

    National Disability Radio: Senator Tom Harkin
    Jul 24 2025
    We wrap up our series on the battle for the passage of the ADA with none other than Senator Tom Harkin. Senator Harkin was the lead sponsor of the ADA in the Senate and has spent his career being a steadfast ally to the disability community. In this interview we talk to him about what that was like, where we need to go from here, and he even stumps us with a bit of disability rights trivia. Full transcript available at: https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndr-harkin/ Michelle Bishop: Welcome back to another episode of National Disability Radio. This is the final in our series on the anniversary of the ADA. So before we jump into a very special guest that we have for you this episode, I am one of your podcast hosts, Michelle Bishop, the voter access and engagement manager at NDRN. Stephanie Flynt McEben: And I’m Stephanie Flynt McEben, public policy analyst here at NDRN, and another host, or one of our other hosts, for our podcast today. Michelle Bishop: Okay. Clearly taking his side, Stephanie. Clearly taking his side. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Okay. Okay. But Jack has proven that he is worthy of host, Michelle Bishop: Producer and pro host extraordinaire, please introduce yourself. Jack Rosen: Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate the support. Hi, producer and host, Jack Rosen, here. Really excited about today’s episode. This guest has been at the top of our wish list for a while now, and we are so thrilled to have him on. So I suppose we want to just get into it. Michelle, why don’t you tell the folks that we have on today? Michelle Bishop: We’re really excited today to be talking to the honorable Senator Tom Harkin, who was so instrumental in so much of the early disability rights movement and passage of the ADA. In 1974, Tom Harkin was elected to Congress from Iowa’s 5th Congressional District. In 1984, after serving 10 years in the US House of Representatives, Senator Harkin was elected to the Senate and reelected in 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008. He retired from the US Senate in January of 2015. I use the term retired loosely. He is still very active in the movement. As a young senator, Tom was tapped by Senator Ted Kennedy to craft legislation to protect the civil rights of millions of Americans with physical and mental disabilities. He knew firsthand about the challenges facing people with disabilities from his late brother Frank, who was deaf from an early age. What emerged from that process would later become his signature legislative achievement, the Americans with Disabilities Act. In September 2009, following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Harkin became chairman of the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions, or as we know it, HELP Committee. Senator Harkin believed that to serve in this capacity was to carry on the legacy which helped lead to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. In 2015, Senator Harkin and Ruth Harkin establish the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa to inform citizens, inspire creative cooperation, and catalyze change on issues of social justice, fairness, and opportunity. The institute works to improve the lives of all Americans by giving policymakers access to high quality information and engaging citizens as active participants in the formation of public policy. Senator Harkin, thank you so much for joining us today. Jack Rosen: So we’re sitting here today with Senator Tom Harkin for our series commemorating the 35th Anniversary of the passage of the ADA. This is Producer Jack Rosen. I am joined by my co-hosts, Michelle Bishop and Stephanie Flynt. And to kick things off, we wanted to ask you, one thing we’ve found when talking to some of the folks who were involved in the passage of the ADA is that they recalled that was quite a fight to get people with HIV, AIDS and mental illness, as well as substance use disorders covered at the time, especially being 1990 and there was a lot of stigmatization of people with HIV, AIDS. Could you talk a little bit about that fight and why it was important for you to make sure those groups were included? Senator Harkin: Well, yes, because we didn’t want to leave any element of a disability group out of the coverage of the bill, want to be comprehensive. You start carving out one group, then there’s somebody else will carve out somebody else and the thing falls apart. The HIV, AIDS thing came up because there was so much misinformation about AIDS and how people got it. And a lot of it, let’s face it, was based on homophobia at that time. And we had some purveyors in the country and in the Senate of that kind of discrimination. Former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina is predominant among that. And so they tried to do whatever they could to carve out that portion of our populace. Well, we were successful in the Senate in keeping it out, but the House at the last minute added what was called the Chapman Amendment. Chapman was a congressman from ...
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    48 mins
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