Being a parent of a child with a disability is not easy and can be scary in the beginning. Many disabilities are still stigmatized, although places are becoming more attentive to this, making businesses more accessible and brands featuring individuals with disabilities as models.
Individuals with disabilities are just like able-bodied individuals, and this four-year-old with Down Syndrome is proving that at the young age of four.
This is Riley Baxter, AKA ‘Smiley Riley,’ and he sure knows how to work it for the camera!
He’s a child model, represented by Zebedee Management, who work specifically with people with disabilities and capture every bit of Riley’s infectious positive personality through their work.
His parents were worried that people would overlook his abilities, seeing only his disability, but they’ve been more than pleasantly surprised that that hasn’t been the case.
“Riley is getting so much out of life and whenever he accomplishes something it seems that little bit extra special knowing how much harder he had to work for it,” his dad Stuart told Caters .
“We have called him ‘Smiley Riley’ from a young age, because he makes people really happy and seeing his smile gives people a pick-me-up on a bad day.”
Riley absolutely loves modeling.
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“He loves the camera, you say pose and he will make this little pout followed by sticking his tongue out,” Stuart said.
At only four years of age, he’s already making a mark in the modeling world, helping foster greater diversity and inclusion for individuals with disabilities in mass media.
He’s showing that people with disabilities can do the same things that able-bodied people can do and achieve their dreams.
