What is it like to be autistic? The Guardian’s latest VR film offers a glimpse of how a person on the autism spectrum copes with a stressful environment

The Party allows you to enter the world of an autistic teenager, Layla, who is at a surprise birthday celebration. You will hear her thoughts about what she is experiencing and how it is affecting her, and share the sensory overload that leads to a meltdown (an intense response to an overwhelming situation). The drama provides viewers with a powerful first-person perspective on the challenges that social situations may present to someone on the autism spectrum.



Autism affects more than one in 100 people in the UK. Compared with autistic males, females on the autism spectrum are more likely to go unrecognised and unsupported, often with severe consequences for their wellbeing and mental health. This is partly because the diagnostic conventions are biased towards males, meaning they are insensitive to more female-typical autism presentations. The under-diagnosis of girls and women also reflects the fact that many will develop strategies to mask their autism in order to manage day-to-day interactions.



The Party is based on a concept by the author Lucy Hawking and is written by Sumita Majumdar, who drew on her own experiences as a person with autism in similar social situations. Throughout the film, viewers hear Layla’s thoughts, voiced by the autistic teenager Honey Jones. The storyline was developed after extensive focus groups and interviews with people on the autism spectrum as well as with input from the National Autistic Society, the Autism Research Trust and the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre.



The visual and auditory effects in the film were based on scientific research about the kinds of symptoms seen in autistic individuals, such as difficulties with processing faces, and hypersensitivity to lights, loud noises and strong odours. Interviews conducted with autistic women also revealed they had issues with how things sound during a meltdown, including having difficulties distinguishing between sounds, hearing echoing voices and being unable to process the other information around them.



You can watch the film as a YouTube 360 video. If you want to watch it as a VR experience, download the Guardian’s new VR app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and watch it using Google Cardboard or Daydream.

