If you’ve watched Special Agent Oso (Disney Channel) as much as I, you recognized the title as part of the opening song to this cartoon. Special Agent Oso is a fairly recent addition to the Disney Channel lineup. When I was looking for links for my previous post on the Disney Channel, I hit on this story on the making of Special Agent Oso. The creator (Ford Riley) has an autistic kid (Quinn).
Shortly after Riley began developing the show, Quinn was diagnosed with autism. Riley drew from his son’s therapy to develop much of the core curriculum and structure of the show. His therapist would break down even the simplest activities into really small steps his son could handle, and Riley, in turn, broke down each episode’s task into three small steps young viewers could understand.
Here is the theme song, so you can have it stuck in your head too:
As you might guess from the title and the theme song, Oso is a James Bond take-off. They adapt Bond titles (e.g. “Live and let twirl”) complete with songs.
Special Agent Oso breaks his tasks (both his training missions and helping kids) into “three separate steps”. Luckily for you, I can’t find a good YouTube video of that song to give you an earworm on that too!
Left Brain Right Brain 
That’s so adorable, and I love the concept of the show. I’ve never seen it before, hopefully I can get my son to watch it.
Leila,
another random factoid–his voice is Sean Astin, Samwise from the Lord of the Rings.
Sean does look like a teddy bear, perfect casting.
My daughter (PDD NOS) watches this show almost every morning, as we get ready for work/daycare. We both love it. Three special steps, so now you know, three special steps and you’re ready to go…
I have a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder and he LOVES this show! We have incorporated the “3 Special Steps” into a lot of what we do from getting dressed in the morning to brushing teeth at night! The stories are very relevant and timely! I hope to see many more episodes to come!
Thanks, yet another song I won’t be able to properly cleanse out of my head the rest of the day. Very cute, though.
My son absolutely loves this show. He learns colors, matching, order, and so much more. He is being assessed for autism and his speech was developed by watching this show. I thank the creator so much for helping kids like my William through the development of this show! If my son is diagnosed, I’m getting a special agent oso tattoo because this show helped my son’s speech and learning. Now Dad and I understand why he loves it so much:-)