According to the National Autism Society, around 700,000 people in the UK alone are on the autism spectrum, however when considering family members, this figure indicates that autism directly impacts the daily life of approximately 2.8 million people in our country. The writers of U.S. children’s TV show Sesame Street appear to be aware of the high number of diagnoses in the States and worldwide, as well as our lack of understanding of autism, and as a result decided to introduce a new ‘muppet’ character this month called Julia, a little girl with autism who has orange hair and a toy rabbit. Sherrie Westin, EVP of global social impact and philanthropy at Sesame Workshop, informed the Guardian that: “We wanted to address autism in general because of the growing number of children who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.” Ms Westin further states that: “We felt that creating a character who was autistic would allow children to identify her but equally important, it would allow us to model for all children the differences and commonalities of a child with autism…It was an opportunity to help explain autism and to help increase awareness and understanding.” The BBC reports that Julia's puppeteer, Stacey Gordon, a mother of an autistic son, noted that the creation of an autistic muppet is "huge": "Had my son's friends been exposed to his behaviours through something that they had seen on TV before they experienced them in the classroom, they might not have been frightened". The TV show is able to demonstrate traits of autism by way of example. One clip features Julia painting at a table when the character ‘Big Bird’, arrives, attempting to start a conversation. Julia does not respond to Big Bird carrying on with her work. Big Bird is then seen expressing his belief that Julia did not like him; however, another character explains that Julia’s lack of response is due to the fact that “Julia has autism. So sometimes it takes her a little longer to do things.” Ms Westin explained to the LA Times that they chose traits for Julia they thought would be most helpful, and most typical. Julia’s memory is very good, and she has excellent drawing skills; however she is quiet and has trouble sustaining eye contact with others. She also needs more time than other characters to process information and can become distressed by intense sensory stimuli, such as loud noises. Ms Westin further told the Times that it was important for Julia to be a female character as autism in girls is not as well understood or diagnosed as it is with boys. The National Autistic Society states that statistics show more males than females have a diagnosis of autism, quoting various studies which have concluded that men:women ratios range from 2:1 to 16:1. The difference is said to be for a variety of reasons including: females presenting differently to males, females masking difficulties, testing being catered for typical traits of males rather than females, verbal skills, with environmental and social factors also having been said to play a part. It is held that diagnoses for males are more common than for females; however, no concrete reason as to why this is the case has yet been established. It is important that we are aware of the various traits of autism, so we are able to better understand the difficulties of others and be better prepared to offer our support. This TV show highlights the differences and similarities of those with autism and their peers, and it is hoped that this new character will help children understand a difficulty adults themselves struggle to understand, increasing awareness at a young age to help shape the way we think and act in the future. However, it must also be recognised that the traits being demonstrated, although typical, may not necessarily be the most appropriate for females, as females with autism have been known to socialize and integrate with peers by copying various norms without fully understanding them. Whether this choice of character will be well received and deemed helpful is as of yet unknown; however, as the show has aired this month it is likely we will start to see more of the public view.