Sean (Fancy Nancy)

Sean is an autistic character in the animated children's series Fancy Nancy. He appears in one episode (season 2, episode 6 - Nancy's New Friend).

Character creation
Consulting and research for the episode was by
 * Elaine Hall, who has an autistic son and who has also done autism consulting for a variety of other works such as Please Stand By and Atypical
 * Autism Speaks
 * Hollywood, Health and Society

The creative team also drew inspiration from personal experiences with neurodivergent children.

Sean is voiced by George Yionoulis, who is also autistic.

Biography
Sean is Lionel's cousin. Lionel has told Nancy that Sean is autistic, but she misheard and thinks that Sean is artistic. When Nancy and Bree go to visit Sean and Lionel, Nancy tries to bond with Sean over art. Sean on the other hand, is sorting his model trains while infodumping about them. Sean gets upset when his sandwich for lunch turns out to have crunchy peanut butter, because he always has smooth peanut butter, so he goes to his aunt to get a new one.

Nancy is upset because she thinks she forgot how to make friends, but Lionel clarifies once again that Sean is autistic and what that means: "Sean's brain works kind of different. He likes doing the same things because it makes him happy." Nancy decides to redo her first impression and throws Sean a party with trains and smooth peanut butter sandwiches. However, when Sean arrives, she cheers loudly and there are flashing lights. This causes great distress for Sean and he ends up running away to calm down.

Nancy is afraid to try again to make friends because she fear she'll hurt Sean, but Lionel reassures her and says she just needs a little practice. He suggest she tries doing something Sean enjoys doing as well. Nancy approaches Sean while he's sorting his trains, and they end up bonding over French trains.

Autism
Sean walks on his toes and speaks in a slow, monotonous voice. He doesn't really look at people, except for a brief moment while he talks to Nancy about French trains.