By high school, students have no interest in Sesame Street. However, the show is making an important statement about accepting people with disabilities on its newest season, A new character named Julia with autism will be making her debut on an episode called “Meet Julia”.

Julia is not new to the Sesame Street franchise. She has been featured in books and online. Sesame Street wanted to make a bigger impact by making her a regular character. The hope is that children will be exposed to diverse personalities from a young age, which will make them more accepting.

Autism is a very large spectrum, however, so it was difficult to perfect Julia. In her first episode, Julia will hesitate when Big Bird wants to shake her hand and talk with her. She will also show sensitivity to a siren that goes off while they are playing tag. Another behavior she does is flapping her arms when she is angry.

Julia will be part of games and songs that the other characters are participating in, and the characters are very nice and accepting to Julia. This has the possibility of teaching kids to play with people with disabilities.

As for Julia’s personality, she loves her toy bunny, is very curious, has a positive attitude, and is a little shy.

Juia’s puppeteer Stacey Gordon has a son with autism, and she wishes that Julia would have been introduced sooner. Her son’s classmates often did not understand him, and she feels that Julia would have helped the classmates to better understand people with disabilities.

The response to Julia has been extremely positive so far. Many are happy that Julia is being portrayed as part of a large spectrum, instead of trying to combine the whole spectrum into a stereotype.

“I think that Julia is a good way to show children at an early age that some children are different. For many children Julia may be the first person with autism that they encounter. This may make it less “scary”, or intimidating for young children when they encounter someone with autism,” says Sarah Getzke, special education teacher and advisor of the STARS club.

The hope is to make Julia a major character, because if a child is continuously exposed to a lesson, they are more likely to remember and apply it. Julia is truly breaking the barrier and shaping the future generation into accepting people.