The Guardian recently posted a video about a fictional character named Layla, a teenager with ASD, who offers us a first-person perspective of her experience navigating a stressful social situation: a surprise birthday party.
“Look at all that food, touching other food…can the biscuits really be friends with the pasta salad? This is why I don’t fit in. I am the biscuit, they are the salad…you don’t belong on the same plate” her internal dialogue runs.
The video is based on a concept by the author Lucy Hawking and is written by Sumita Majumadar, an adult with ASD. Producers at The Guardian also conducted extensive interviews and focus groups with individuals with ASD and gathered information from the National Autistic Society, the Autism Research Trust, and the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre in order to create a film to illustrate how an individual with ASD might perceive the world. Check out the full video below: