Sesame Street’s newest neighborhood resident has bright orange hair and a profound love for her toy rabbit and she also has autism, the first for the children’s program. The historic television program revealed the news of Julia’s arrival on its website along with a series of YouTube videos. Julia has been a member of the Sesame Street family since 2015 mainly through their storybooks. But it was time for her television debut. She loves to sing and can memorize lyrics better than her young peers, struggles with loud noises and expressing her emotions. Over almost five decades, Sesame Street has dealt with real life issues and used Muppets to explain the real life scenarios in a kid friendly manner. For instance, upon meeting Julia for the first time, the character of Big Bird felt disliked by Julia. “Yeah, but you know, we had to explain to Big Bird that Julia likes Big Bird. It’s just that Julia has autism. So sometimes it takes her a little longer to do things,” explained the Elmo character. Stacy Gordon, a Phoenix-based puppet artist who plays Julia, is the mother of an autistic child. “We wanted to demonstrate some of the characteristics of autism in a positive way,” said the vice president of Sesame Workshop’s. Julia was created as a girl to break down the “myths and misconceptions around autism,” subconsciously addressing the perception it mostly affects males. Hopefully Julia will not just be the Muppet with autism, but simply Julia, like the other neighborhood Muppets.