darkSpyro

Quote: Samius

Eh, great. I'm not exactly against the change or anything, but I can't help but to wonder what the point of this was. It was probably made to please certain adults, since the kids likely won't give a ****. I can see them just regarding this character as "strange" without looking too much into it.

See, I can understand why you may think that, but take it from me. I grew up with a brother who was diagnosed with severe autism, so I'm very familiar with the way people with that disability behave. I can spot it from yards away, and I know how to interact with people who have it.

But when I went to high school, I realized that it wasn't the case with everyone. There was a special needs class that my brother when to in the same school as me. And when I heard some of the other students talk about these kids, they talked about how strange and unnerving their behavior was to them. Like, "Oh, this autistic kid kept making the same weird noise across the hallway," and, "Oh, this autistic kid took his pants all the way down in the bathroom when I was a freshman, and it freaked me out, and I thought, 'This isn't a normal school!'"

So it occurred to me that not everyone knows why autistic people act the way they do, or that they even exist at all, until they meet one and are completely thrown off. I was normalized to autism, but a lot of other people aren't. So having an autistic character in a children's show can help normalize the existence of people with autism. This clip showed that, despite the differences, you can still play and interact with them, even though you probably can't the same way as you can other kids. It'll teach them that you don't have to avoid them out of fear of the unknown, because now they know how to be around them.

Am I making sense, or am I just rambling now?