how to explain autism to my 4 yo?

[snoopy5386]

Please help me out with this one:
We've started helping out/hanging out with a family from our mom's club - mom is 34 weeks pregnant with twins, dad is working out of town, they have two kids a typical 2.5 yo DD and a 4 yo autistic son.
We were at their house yesterday and the little boy didn't speak the entire time we were there. He is pretty high functioning and was able to communicate with us nonverbally and they were able to play together a little bit. My DD who is super, super outgoing and never shuts up was asking me why this little boy wasn't talking. I didn't really have an answer for her - I told her he was feeling shy. How do I explain his autism to her? I know it will take him quite a while to warm up to us and I'm not sure what to tell her in the meantime.
Advice?

[laurata]

I would just say that his brain is wired a bit differently, and he has other ways of communicating/ interacting. I go along the lines of some people being good at/ enjoying building things, while others are better at singing/ running/ painting/ etc.

[heatherdeg]

Originally Posted by laurata

I would just say that his brain is wired a bit differently, and he has other ways of communicating/ interacting. I go along the lines of some people being good at/ enjoying building things, while others are better at singing/ running/ painting/ etc.

You might also check out some books from the library about kids with different obstacles to overcome that would help her understand not just autism, but the concept that there are kids with all kinds of differences. Pebble Books does a series called "Understanding Differences" and one of the titles is "Some Kids Have Autism" (another is "Some Kids Are Deaf", etc.). I'm not sure how old your daughter is, but these are written at a level that my son "got" at 5yo. I can't remember if they were good for younger kids... They're relatively short with lots of pictures, though.

[Kristine233]

We have had to explain this to our other kids and also kids of friends. We just say that everyone's brain works differently and then give examples. In your case a simple "you talk with word and he talks without" may be sufficient. We as parents tend to try to over-explain things. I've found that often times the simplest answer is the perfect one.

[Zan&Zav]

I struggled with this to, but now my 5 year old will stop mean people from glaring at his 3 year old brother in the grocery store by saying "my babys brain works differantly then yours and mine."

I explained to him after we got the diagnosis that autism makes his brothers brain work differant and he sees things and reacts to things differantly then we do. Just like a blind person would use their hands to see things, his brothers brain does things a different way. I also emphasised thats it's not a bad thing, just different, like being left handed or right handed.