Meet Julia: Sesame Street’s & Autism

On April 10, 2017, Sesame Street film an episode where one of the characters named Julia who has autism. Stacy Gordon, the puppeteer, has a son who has high-functioning autism and worked hard to portrayed Julia the best way she could and real as possible  with a child on the spectrum. My Thoughts: I believe they did a good job portraying a child with autism. When Elmo introduces her friend, Julia, to Big Bird, Julia fails to give Big Bird eye contact and struggles interacting with people socially, which causes Big Bird to feel sad. However, Julia is a beautiful artist, loves to play, and loves her stuffed bunny, Fluffster. Julia show her excitement by flapping her arms, and Elmo and Abby decided to create a new game called Boing-Boing Tag until Julia has a meltdown when she hears a siren drive by. I believed my favorite part of the episode was where the characters sing We Can All Be Friends, because even though they are each a little bit different they realized they still can be friends. The shows explains that people with autism often struggled to give eye contact, and can develop sensory overload, which cause them to have a meltdown.