Chris Ulmer

Christopher Ulmer is an American disability-rights advocate, former special education teacher, YouTuber, and founder of the non-profit Special Books by Special Kids.

Early life and education Christopher Ulmer was born on March 4, 1989, a native of Northeast Philadelphia, grew up in the Rhawnhurst neighborhood before moving to Willow Grove, where most of his family still resides. After graduating from college, Ulmer moved to Kentucky to coach college soccer at the University of the Cumberlands, where he received a master's degree in special education.

Career After completing his degree, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he became a special education teacher, working with students aged 7 to 10.

With parental permission, Ulmer began filming interviews with his students and posting them on social media. The project was initially created to introduce his special education students to the community. By March 2026, the YouTube channel had around 3.7 million subscribers and over 966 million views.

He travelled back and forth through the country interviewing disabled children to give them, as ABC News put it, "an opportunity to be seen and accepted." As a result, Ulmer has created more than 500 videos of those interviews. A partial transcript, as an example of an interview of a child by Ulmer, is included in the book Flying Starts for Unique Children by author and special-needs teacher Adele Devine.

In March 2019, the YouTube channel of SBSK had its comment sections disabled as part of a wider platform policy affecting videos featuring minors. According to YouTube, the measure was introduced to reduce the risk of predatory behavior in comment sections. According to The Washington Post, channels featuring children with disabilities were bystanders in this near-blanket ban, and the enforcement of the policy was not applied consistently across all channels.

Personal life Ulmer has been in a relationship with Alyssa Porter.

Awards and nominations OrganizationsYearCategoryResult National Organization for Rare Disorders 2018 Rare Impact Award Streamy Awards 2018 Nonprofit or NGO Award