Helping my young daughter become self-identified

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My daughter has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS, and is on the milder side of the spectrum. She's 5 1/2 years old. Recently, she's begun to talk about how she's different from other kids, particularly her sister. One time in particular she talked about how she is really frightened of meeting new people and she doesn't know what to do when she meets new people, but her sister isn't scared at all to meet or talk to new people. She explicitly said, "I am not like the other kids" Plus, she's in occupational therapy and speech therapy on a regular basis (although she isn't enrolled in school), and she's beginning to realize that not everyone has to go see a "doctor-friend" like she does.

I'm very comfortable with her knowing about her diagnosis and from her conversations, I think it's time to start talking with her about why she's different. I don't have the first idea on how to go about this. Does anyone have any advice or resources that might be helpful?

Hi, I am not a parent myself. I am an adult on the spectrum, and try to be a pretty good guy.

How about initially telling your daughter that her brain works a little different than most people (or similar in age appropriate language).

And then later on, maybe gently and matter-of-factly presenting her with:

There are artist types of people,

There are scientist types of people,

There are actor and actress types of people,

and this is what makes the world an interesting place.

Other parents and people on the spectrum have written threads on this subject, which are collected in the stickied index under "disclosure." My son was much older when he was diagnosed, so I don't know that our experience would be congruent.

Many of us used the book "All Cats Have Aspergers". My son really liked it, and we got it from the library. I would read the book and say as much or as little as it feels comfortable. Then at times you can refer to it when you see her do something mentioned in the book. Go from there. You probably need to caution her not to blab the word around too much. Many people don't understand it.

I'm sorry, I couldn't find the stickied index you were talking about. Is it in the Parenting forum? At the top of the page of the parenting forum, I found a thread with a lot of parenting discussion stickies, but there wasn't one titled "Disclosure".

Sorry, I should have been more specific. There is a sticky at the top of this board entitled "Parenting Index" and just to be quicker, here's the link: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt166142.html

You have to scroll through the thread to find the different topics, it's further down on that page. Good luck! I hope you find something that helps you!

And there's also another book by the same author Kathy Hoopmann entitled "Inside Asperger's Looking Out."