How do I explain to 4 year-old that her twin brother has PDD

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Although my 4 year-old twins are very close and mostly play very well together, my NT daughter is gradually getting more and more frustrated and sometimes angry at her twin brother who has PDD-NOS (behaviours which are ASD-related). For example, she will often complain that sometimes he just ignores her when she's talking to him and doesn't always answer him, or when they are with other children he often doesn't play along with the rules like everyone else and is annoying, (there are many more different examples - these are just a couple). I've realised that I'm going to have to have a talk with her about the fact that her brother has PDD. I feel that if I don't tell her there is a reason for his behaviour sometimes, she will continue to think he's doing things "on purpose", or to annoy her. I'm just not quite sure how to go about it - 4 years-old is still very young. She is very smart and I don't want her to start resenting her brother - especially since they are such good friends. She is very aware however that he is different from her friends of the same age. I'm also concerned how this will affect my son. She will no doubt talk to him about it, and I'm not sure if he will understand/how he will react to it. Anyone have any ideas?

First of all: I am not a parent. However, I do know that at age 4 I would have been able to understand at least a simple explanation about someone being "different."

If your daughter is noticing and remarking on her brother's behaviors, then she does need to be told that there is a reason for it that he cannot help (and I think that when you have this talk, her brother should be there also so he can hear it).

You could say something like "his brain is different from yours in ways that make him sense and react to things in ways that you do not. This is why he seems to not pay attention sometimes, and why he may ignore rules of games--because they don't make sense to him." Make it clear that he is NOT doing anything "on purpose", and may not even be aware that he is doing anything "wrong", because to him, these behaviors make sense--it's "normal" behaviors that don't.

They will probably have questions. Answer in a way that doesn't use too many technical terms, but don't talk down to them either. Kids often are capable of understanding more than we think they can.

Good luck with this, btw. This can't be an easy thing to deal with.

There is a nice book called "This is Gabriel Making Sense of School" that does a pretty good job of explaining sensory processing disorders. Another nice book is "My brother Charlie.". You may also want to do a google search for Stark Raving Mad Mommie's blog entry "Little Specks of Autism"

Hope that helps.

This is not directly an answer to your question, but I think it is important if you truly want your daughter to understand your son. I would be no help in figuring out an "age-appropriate" way to explain any of this, as I was never a normal kid at all. (I was reading Readers Digest before I got into first grade, and understood the factual content with little trouble, but I took much longer to figure out social and emotional issues than anyone else. I have no idea what a four year old NTs mind is like.) But when you explain that her brother is different - not better, not worse, just different - you need to try to help her understand one other thing; the most important thing of all, from our perspective.

Although I am very sure that he does not yet understand all the things he can't understand, sooner or later, he will come to at least understand that there are things he doesn't understand. We "get" that much. But other people, even those who care about us, very seldom ever even guess that they don't "get" us. The large numbers of NT people around him will force him to grasp that there are things he can't understand. On the other hand, the fact that NTs are by far in the majority - and they do not have that forced experience of confronting what they can't understand - means that they almost never even guess they are just as bad at understanding us.

I'm sure she doesn't mean it, but I'm also sure she's frustrating her brother just as much as he's frustrating her. She has friends to turn to, other people just like her. He doesn't. Everyone he has to turn to will frustrate him. This is a huge difference, and if they're going to preserve a decent relationship in the years to come, it will help - immensely - if she comes to understand this.

If I'm not clear, if what I'm trying to say seems muddied to you, please feel free to reply and ask me to clarify. It may be a long, difficult process: I have difficulty figuring out many things NTs take for granted, and just as much difficulty conveying my autie perspective accurately to them. But I'm willing to do whatever it takes if there's the slightest chance of sparing another of us from growing up so isolated and misunderstood.

By the way, as his parent - you don't and won't "get" him, either. Even the 'experts' don't "get" us. Read all the posts on here; they see what's on the outside, and never bother asking us what it is really like on the inside. They're too focused on trying to make us become just like everyone else - which is doomed to failure, one way or another; either we can't be like others, or if we can, we're not naturally good at it and have to struggle twice as hard to get half as far that way.

I literally grew up thinking of the people around me the way you would think of those incomprehensible figures in a video game, the ones who stand around and block your way to the next level (or whatever) until you somehow figure out they want you to offer to trade a fish for the old shoe they have (that you're going to need on the next level). The first creature I ever encountered that I understood as a fellow 'being' was a cat. And - very young - I instinctively understood they were trapped in a world they didn't make and didn't understand. I am not the same as a cat, and I wasn't then, but I could understand them better than I could understand people, and they could understand me better than people understood me.

I'm trying to help you understand your son as much as possible, for the same reason I mentioned above. I hate to think of any more of us growing up so totally isolated and misunderstood. If you have questions, feel free to ask. If I really don't want to answer, I do know how to say no...