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    STREET CRED

    SESAME STREET HAS LAUNCHED AN AMBITIOUS PLAN TO EXPAND ITS GLOBAL REACH AT THE SAME TIME AS IT BATTLES TO KEEP KIDS WATCHING
    by BELINDA LUSCOMBE Apr 08, 2017 6 minutes
    Experts hope Julia, the first new Muppet on Sesame Street’s broadcast show in a decade, might dispel misunderstandings of autism

    SESAME STREET PRIDES ITSELF ON BEING ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST INCLUSIVE PLACES, BUT IT’S QUITE A HARD JOINT TO BREAK INTO. When the show introduced Julia, a character on the autism spectrum, in April, she had been gestating for six years. The first brand-new Muppet in a decade, Julia was initially planned as a cartoon character for the web but got such a big response that after an 18-month test run in the exurbia of digital storybooks and animation, she was canonized in Muppet form and allowed into the neighborhood.

    The Sesame folks, who produce a 30-page-plus curriculum for the show every year, consulted with more than 250 experts and advocacy groups as Julia was being formed. A series of white papers had been written on her before she even had a face. She has a compendium of autistic characteristics, such as an increased sensitivity to sound and a tendency to flap her arms when excited. (She has a spare set of arms for such occasions.) The covering of the toy she carries, Fluffster, had to be changed because it

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