Mattel is introducing an autistic Barbie on Monday as the newest member of its Fashionistas line intended to celebrate diversity. The company said the doll is designed to reflect some ways autistic people may experience and process the world, and it is meant to join other Barbie releases that have included dolls with traits such as Down syndrome, blindness, and vitiligo.
Mattel said it developed the autistic doll over more than 18 months in partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights and better media representation of people with autism. The company said the goal was to create a Barbie that captures aspects of autism while drawing on the experience of people who work on advocacy and representation.
Noor Pervez, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s community engagement manager, said the team faced the challenge that autism “doesn’t look any one way.” He added, “But we can try and show some of the ways that autism expresses itself.” Pervez said autism traits can vary widely in degree and that many disability-related traits are not immediately visible.
In the doll’s design, Mattel said the eyes shift slightly to the side to represent how some people with autism may avoid direct eye contact. The company also said the doll has articulated elbows and wrists to reflect stimming—such as hand flapping and other gestures—that some autistic people use to process sensory information or to express excitement.
Mattel said the development team debated whether to dress the doll in a tight or loose-fitting outfit, describing that some autistic people prefer loose clothing because they are sensitive to fabric seams, while others wear figure-hugging garments for a sense of where their bodies are. The team chose an A-line dress with short sleeves and a flowy skirt, designed to provide less fabric-to-skin contact, and it equipped the doll with flat shoes to promote stability and ease of movement.
The company said each doll comes with accessories including a pink finger clip fidget spinner, noise-canceling headphones, and a pink tablet modeled after devices some autistic people who struggle to speak use to communicate.
The addition to the Fashionistas line also prompted Mattel to include facial features inspired by employees in India and mood boards reflecting women with Indian backgrounds, Pervez said. He said it was important for the doll to represent a segment of the autistic community that is generally underrepresented.
Mattel said the rollout continues its series of diversity-focused dolls: it introduced its first doll with Down syndrome in 2023 and brought out a Barbie representing a person with Type 1 diabetes last summer. The Fashionistas line also includes a Barbie and a Ken with a prosthetic leg, as well as a Barbie with hearing aids, with the line also covering different body types and a range of hair and skin colors.
In a statement, Jamie Cygielman, Mattel’s global head of dolls, said, “Barbie has always strived to reflect the world kids see and the possibilities they imagine, and we’re proud to introduce our first autistic Barbie as part of that ongoing work,”
Mattel said the autistic Barbie is expected to be available at the company’s online shop and at Target stores starting Monday for a suggested retail price of $11.87. The company said Walmart stores are expected to start carrying the new Barbie in March.
The announcement arrived as the CDC reported last year that the estimated prevalence of autism among 8-year-old children in the U.S. was 1 in 31. The CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network estimated that Black, Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander children were more likely than white children to have a diagnosis, and that prevalence was more than three times higher among boys than girls.
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