Autism on Screen- Pablo

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Today I’m going to take a look at the latest live-action/animation sensation, the acclaimed children’s TV show ‘Pablo‘.

So what’s so special about it?

Co-produced by RTÉjr and CBeebies in Ireland and the UK, ‘Pablo‘ is a unique kids TV show about a 5 and a 1/2 year old boy with autism who with the help of some magic crayons, creates an elaborate world of animals to help him to cope with and make sense of the world around him.

Here’s a quick video about the show:

The really cool thing about ‘Pablo‘ is that the stories are based on the real life experiences of several people on the spectrum, and not only that, but all of the characters in the show themselves have autism! 😀

52 10-minute episodes have been created thus far, and several countries have expressed interest in broadcasting the show. Even Netflix wants to broadcast it!

So what’s the show like?

Granted I’ve only caught a few episodes of the show, but I found it to be an excellent and lighthearted show that both educates and entertains.

One of the things I really liked is that the show highlights the diverse nature of spectrum traits by personifying them as animal characters in Pablo’s imagination. Each character possesses different autistic traits as narrated in the catchy theme tune:

I really liked how in one particular episode the writer took literal thinking and turned it into something fun. Pablo spilled a bag of crisps which his mother said “went everywhere.” Following this, Pablo embarks on an adventure to locate the crisps in such far reaching places as the moon and at the bottom of the ocean! A new and inventive way to spin autism! 🙂

All in all this is an excellent show for the youth of today which should help to educate the next generation and make them more accepting of autism 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a great weekend!

Aoife