Uh, that's just not how autism works. I would enjoy watching a young man with autism slowly learn adaptive skills to find ways to thrive, but that's not really what's happening.
He's gone from high functioning autism to ultra high functioning autism, to basically being neurotypical but with some behavioural particularities.
For example, I was really excited to see how he would handle university, since that was such a huge focus in terms of "can he or can't he handle it??" But instead, they don't cover school AT ALL, other than that he misses a midterm, but they give no explanation as to why.
I feel like the character from the first season really would have needed a lot of support and coping skills to go to university, he was barely able to handle highschool without enormous support from his sister.
Now university is just no big deal? Totally within his adaptive capacity? With no special supports other than a support group of similar students? And no therapist???
I worked as an academic support for austistic children, this kind of portrayal just seems disrespectful to the very real challenges and accommodations that high functioning people with autism need in order to thrive.
Like yeah, a lot of people with autism can thrive and be incredibly successful with the right skills and supports, but what the show is doing is making it seem like he doesn't need them, and if that's true, then he never really needed them to begin with, and his mom was actually unreasonable all along...which doesn't sit well with me after all I've seen parents go through in fighting for their kids.
I won't even get into casting a neurotypical actor when there are armies of talented actors with autism out there, that's a whole other can of worms. I just find that this show is feeding into the not very cool illusion that if people with autism were just able to be a little more reasonable, that they would manage to get their behaviour and reactions under control.
The main character is so much the "ideal" lovable person with autism. His limitations are very minor, he doesn't seem to require much accomodation at all, and he seems to be devoid of any actual character flaws beyond "sometimes being autistic makes it hard for him to come off as caring as he actually is" kind of thing.
Meanwhile, in contrast, Special is written and starring a man who actually has CP. His struggles and limitations are pulled from the writer's personal experience. He doesn't always succeed, he isn't always lovable (he's actually profoundly flawed and can be a total prick), and his life doesn't always just get better.
The differences between the shows are becoming really stark as Atypical moves more and more towards neurotypical-perception-of-autism-wish-fulfillment rather than representation.
It's just moving further and further away from what I've seen in my personal experience of working with real families navigating the world with a neuro-atypical family member. Meanwhile, Special rings so true to my personal experience having poorly understood physical disabilities.
