Four year old Julia is the new girl on the street.Sesame street first developed Julia, an autistic four year old, for their digital storybook 'We're Amazing 1,2,3,' in 2015 as part of the 'Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in All Children' initiative.
Julia is an old buddy of Elmo’s and the newest friend on Sesame Street. Julia has autism…and she and Elmo share an amazing friendship. She has bright orange hair and big green eyes, and is also friends with Abby.
Author Leslie Kimmelman created the character following extensive research and input from the autism community and used her own experiences as a mother of a child with autism.
Julia was made into a physical Muppet that debuted in episode 4715 of the show, airing on April 10, 2017. She is performed by Stacey Gordon, who also used her own experiences raising her autistic son to help inform the actions of the character.
Big Bird is a little confused by his first encounter with Julia but gradually learns more about her.
It took over five years of research to bring Julia's character to life - check out the results below:
The introduction of Julia has had an overwhelmingly positive response on twitter:
i watched the full clip of julia from sesame street and i am legitimately crying, julia is so good and so cute and its so positive
— ❤sushi pandit❤ (@acepom967) April 13, 2017
Congratulations Sesame Street for having your first autistic muppet, Julia. Pretty damn cool if you ask me. pic.twitter.com/AcAJRvm9KZ
— Daddio (@KollinVanWho) April 13, 2017
Just had an amazing moment, showing the @sesamestreet clip of Julia to my #autistic little brother. He was overjoyed.
— kira (@krenderson) April 13, 2017
