Meet Julia

[ysabetwordsmith]

Sesame Street has introduced Julia, a Muppet with autism.  For a while now she has appeared in some of the background materials, but recently made her first appearance on the show proper.  Read about Julia and watch part of the first episode.

I think they did about as well as neurotypical people can do on a first attempt.  What I would really like to see is people sending in examples of what autism means for them, or how  they/their kids have interacted with autistic friends.  Using that to inspire Julia's character development and plot dynamics would help her authenticity.  But even in this first clip, I see a lot of things that I recognize.  :D 3q3q3q!!!

Comments

Re: Yes...

[beasts_of_homeworld]

:D (delighted face) awesome! yeah those are all cool flaps that we've seen before, they make a lot of sense to us and we do the hummingbird flippyflaps too sometimes.

the ways you flap are gorgeous and natural, and they're excellent forms of self expression, self care and communication. highly appropriate! ^_^ (happy face)

we're still actually re-learning how to let ourselves flap naturally instead of suppressing it, so we tend to flap more in situations that come up when we're by ourselves or with close loved ones. it's also harder for us to be aware of our body and what's happening when we're stressed or upset or concentrating, too. as a result most of our flaps we know about are happy sociable ones, haha.

edit:
removed discussion of pain/urgency flap because we managed to figure out that it's probably TMI - our brain usually takes at least a week to process the social appropriateness of something (by allistic/neurotypical standards). also because we discovered we hadn't remembered how it goes entirely accurately anyway.
end edit.

if we're alone we generally respond to anger vocally, by making a sudden loud noise that sounds sort of in between a lion's roar and a bull's bellow. we might eventually re-learn how to flap when we're angry as well, which would definitely be helpful for our health, but the bellow is a good, healthy expression too. we just want to have more options.

if we get angry when there are non-beasties around (people in other bodies), we generally just shut down instead and hold still inside, all knotted up and frozen. that's because of abuse, though, it's not a healthy reaction. we're making progress working on it, which is good! ^_^ (happy face) your angry flaps are a great response, very healthy and socially appropriate! they're awesome because they express how you feel without targeting anyone. <3 (heart)