Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all,
I have 4 year old B/G twins. My daughter is NT, i would say some ''autistic traits'' but nothing that would affect her functioning, just quirks i guess. My son is being assesed for Autism (HF as he is verbal) however his behaviour is somewhat challenging and his twin sister has now realised there are differences and has begun to label him 'naughty'.
I find this quite upsetting and i would desperately like to explain to her they have differences but he is not naughty he just doesnt understand in the same way. To an older sibling i feel this would be a little easier to explain, but how do you explain to a child of the same age?
I try to treat them very fairly and equally but this is an impossible task as their needs are so very different! I have seen many a book but they all seem to start with ''my brother is special''. My daughter would instantly take this as she is not and i just cant do that to her.
Any advice would be so gratefully received, thank you in advance xx
The thing that stands out firstly from your post, is be cautious assuming your daughter is NT. Females with ASCs do have a different presentation than males usually, and are more passive. You say she has autistic traits and the genetic risk is high for her as her twin already has it. You would be doing your daughter a disservice by not being vigilant regarding her traits and behaviours (and not comparing them to her brother, as every autistic child is different and there is the presentation based on gender). She may need assessing and support at some point, girls are frequently diagnosed later than boys because they often have better verbal/social skills but their social skills are still not NT. Boys tend to get referred at school as they are more aggressive and the teachers want something done about it, but girls sit passively and do their work and schools think everything is fine.
http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/gender-and-autism/women-and-girls-on-the-autism-spectrum.aspx
Being a twin a child has a higher risk of having autism if the other twin has it (there is a table within this document):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC378547/
Stats quoted here are 63-88% in identical twins, 0-10% in fraternal twins and 3% in siblings:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/aut.html
So you shouldn't rule out autism in your daughter and don't think that because she doesn't have all the same behaviours as her twin that she doesn't have it. You may need to have collated evidence at some point if she has to go for an assessment. Girls are better at masking, but that doesn't mean they don't also need the same supports that boys.
The best way to explain to your daughter why her brother's behaviour is more extreme, is to say "you know how [insert thing/situation] really annoys and upsets you? Well [insert brother's name] feels like that about other things, and this is how he shows it" There are PECS-style social stories you can buy (eBay has them pretty cheap) to go through with her. But bear in mind that if she does have an ASC, she will have lower empathy than normal and will find it harder to grasp why her brother behaves more aggressively than her.