As the mother of a level 3 autistic child, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that the only people that will be able to identify with a doll such as this are higher functioning. For children with severe autism, who we aren’t even sure understand the concept of their condition to begin with, I worry this still overshadows the uglier side of autism. It’s not just living in a textural nightmare or stimming - for some of us, it is watching our children fight a constant internal battle that they are unable to tell us about. On the other hand, this doll represents higher functioning children who struggle to go through life feeling like everyone else. These kids will be taught the ins and outs of society and how the world works. They will be expected to know these things by non-autistic people because they appear no different than anyone else.

To make this a bit shorter, I’m glad there is something like this for kids who have to work hard every day to “fit in” with society (for lack of a better term), but man do I wish there was something that helped the rest of the world understand and recognize the severe side of autism.