Carl isn’t unlike many small children you may know. He balks when his mother suggests he get rid of some of his many stuffed animals. If his friends want to play a game that isn’t his favorite, he feels frustrated. And when he realizes he has left one of his prized toy collections away from home, he needs help falling asleep.
But Carl also differs from most of his peers, and not just because he is a fuzzy little raccoon. Carl is autistic, with reactions that are often longer-lasting, more intense or more socially awkward than those of his pals. As the title character in PBS Kids’ animated television show “Carl the Collector” — and the first autistic lead character in a PBS children’s series — he offers young audiences a rare close-up view of autism spectrum disorder, demonstrating to those who are not on the spectrum, and to those who are, how they can help one another navigate childhood challenges.
“The stories overall are just human experience, stories for everybody,” said Zachariah OHora, the best-selling children’s author and illustrator, who is the creator of “Carl the Collector.” “We just get to see it through all these different lenses.” (The show began streaming last week at PBSkids.org and airs on PBS stations.)
Geared toward viewers ages 4 to 8, the series debuts with a story in which Carl figures out that he can make a photo scrapbook of the plush toys he seldom plays with, which makes them easier to give away. In another episode, when Carl insists on his choice of what to play and when, his buddies persuade him that they should devise a rulebook that includes taking turns.
“So much of the strategies and techniques that are used to support and help autistic individuals are really just extensions of good practice,” said Stephen Shore, an autistic professor of special education at Adelphi University and an adviser to the show.
That support seems especially important now. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 36 American children is now diagnosed with autism — up from one in 150 in the year 2000. Although medical experts attribute the rise partly to increased testing and broader diagnostic criteria, the disorder remains a major concern for parents.
It has also attracted the attention of television producers, who in recent years have included autistic main characters in adult series including “Atypical,” “The Good Doctor” and “As We See It.”
That trend does not appear in children’s programming. While Carl is not the first juvenile figure on the spectrum — PBS Kids has helped pioneer autistic inclusion with characters like Julia on “Sesame Street” and AJ Gadgets on “Hero Elementary” — it is unusual to find an autistic lead. (According to the Geena Davis Institute’s 2024 See Jane Report, only 0.9 percent of characters in popular children’s television last year had any disability, even though the C.D.C. indicates that developmental disability affects 8.56 percent of Americans ages 3 to 17.)
“It felt like a PBS Kids show that needed to be made,” said Sara DeWitt, the organization’s senior vice president and general manager, adding later: “Because we know there are a lot of kids on the spectrum in our audience, in the U.S. today, we just felt like this is something that would fill a gap.”
OHora said he had been inspired years ago by observing his sons, who are not autistic, at an elementary school where children with and without disabilities shared a classroom.
“I noticed that my kids were friends with everybody,” OHora said in a video interview from his home in Narberth, Pa.
“And it was a lightbulb moment for me,” he added. If everyone could be “exposed to the full spectrum of humanity at a young age,” he said, then some of the mystery and stigma surrounding disability might disappear. “Everyone could benefit.”
Everyone certainly benefits in Fuzzytown, the setting for “Carl,” where Yowza! Animation has reproduced the whimsical, woolly look of OHora’s illustration style. Its inhabitants include Sheldon, an actual eager beaver and Carl’s best friend; Forrest, a hyperactive squirrel with an inconvenient nut allergy; and identical twin bunnies, Nico and Arugula. None are autistic, but Lotta, a reserved, musically gifted fox, is also on the spectrum.
Carl helps these friends as much as they help him. Sometimes he can quickly solve a problem with an item from his many collections. Other times, his autistic traits — an obsessive attention to detail, a precision about facts — prove beneficial. When Nico grows angry about being mistaken for her twin, Carl teaches his peers how to tell the sisters apart.
Throughout the series, “it’s the thinking-outside-the-box lesson that I think is going to be the real takeaway,” said Lisa Whittick, the show’s director, who has a 19-year-old autistic son. She added, “Carl is going to be able to show the audience and show his friends that there’s different ways to do things.”
Children portray all these young characters; Kai Barham, 10, who voices Carl, and Maddy McIlwain, 11, who plays Lotta, are autistic themselves.
“It makes me happy that I am finally being represented in a show,” Kai said in a video conversation, adding, “I hope that people who are not on the spectrum will learn that autism is not like the stereotypes.”
The series, for instance, tackles the myth that all who are autistic behave similarly. Whereas Carl enjoys some sensory stimulation, Lotta often wears headphones to muffle loud noises. Momo, an autistic panda, is completely nonverbal and communicates with a device.
The show also counters the stereotype “that autistic people do not want to socially interact,” Shore, the professor and adviser, said. While that is sometimes true, he added, “there are so many autistic people of all ages who I’ve talked to that say, ‘I really do want to interact, but I don’t know how.’”
Carl confronts that challenge in “The Fall,” the first story in a pivotal early episode. (Each half-hour episode has two stories.) When Nico tumbles in the park and scrapes her knee, Carl feels terrible but doesn’t know what to do. When he freezes, Nico storms off.
“I explain autism as often feeling like everyone read this social skills rulebook, except for me, but I’m still expected to take the test,” said Ava X. Rigelhaupt, an autistic writer for the series who based the story’s script on an incident from her own childhood.
In the episode, Carl’s mother gently suggests that he share his diagnosis with his friends. (It is also the first time the series’s viewers hear about autism.) She helps him create a social script to explain that his brain works differently. Carl’s disclosure makes Nico realize that she was letting her anger get in the way of listening, and they reach a mutual understanding.
DeWitt views stories like “The Fall” as learning experiences. In one informal survey before “Carl” debuted, PBS Kids questioned 15 children about their knowledge of autism before and after watching the episode.
After the screening, “it was really remarkable how many kids, even if they hadn’t known the term, were able to say, ‘Oh, I know someone like Carl,’” DeWitt said.
In “The Fall,” Carl says, “I have to collect my thoughts,” which he repeats often, sometimes advising friends to collect theirs. Thinking ideas through before speaking becomes one of the communication tools that “Carl” offers both autistic and nonautistic viewers.
“I hope they learn more about each other,” Shore said, “and that people from all parts of humanity — neurodivergent, neurotypical, neuro-some-other-category-that-we-haven’t-thought-of-yet — understand that we’re more similar than we’re different.”
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