Saskia Mead

Atypical is a great show and as someone who is on the spectrum, I can massively relate to a lot of the things Sam does and feels throughout the show. I believe Sam paints a pretty accurate picture of what it is like to be autistic. However, I do have some critiques. For starters the mums in the autism support group say they’re big on person first language so “person with autism” instead of “autistic person” however that’s outdated and it should be identify first language used NOT person first. They also use the terms high and low functioning which are again offensive and outdated. Following on from that, one of the mums in the group wears a puzzle piece necklace when the puzzle piece is actually an extremely offensive symbol for most autistic people. It suggests we have something missing, like we’re not all there which is very hurtful. It’s also the symbol used for the charity ‘Autism Speaks’ which is a very controversial organisation that completely demonises autism and doesn’t have autistic people in its best interests. There is something the character Paige does in the show which I find appalling. When her and Sam are in a relationship she gives Sam a limit of only being able to talk about his special interest (Antarctica) 3 times in a day. He has to give her a card each time he talks about it and when those cards are gone he cannot talk about it anymore. I don’t understand why they would include this in the show because Paige is essentially trying to dilute Sam’s personality. Why should he not be able to talk about the things he loves freely?? It’s always something that’s got on my nerves about Paige. Another thing I’d like to mention is the mum’s of the autistic kids as a whole. They’re very much ‘autism mums’ and I find most of them infuriating. Their whole personality is the fact their kids are autistic and they make the struggles of their children all about them. Like “ohhh my life is so hard because I have an autistic child” how do you think your ACTUALLY autistic child feels???? The last thing I’d like to point out is that although I believe Sam represents autism fairly decently, he is a very stereotypical white, male, autistic character. Eventhough I have quite a few negative things to point out about the show, it is overall very enjoyable despite what I’ve said. I do highly recommend it however I do warn you there are multiple things that they get wrong.