Telling your child they have a diagnosis

[usernametaken]

Have you told your children about their diagnosis? How did you do it? What sort of age?
Are there any books that can help explain what is happening to them?

DD is 7 and has a recent diagnosis of Aspergers. She'll be going through CAMHs as soon as their waiting list shortens.

Both my girls know they have autism although dd2 doesn't really understand it. Dd1 asked me why all the appointments ect when she was 6 maybe 7. We explained that her wires in her brain go a different way to other peoples and because of this her thinking is sometimes different. We had a few friends who also have Asd so we spoke about them too. Had a few books about and watched a few documentaries that showed autism in a positive light, which helped too.

I told DS1 when he was 9(ish), I waited until he was having a very down day about friendships and it just fitted very well into conversation. He had heard of Aspergers as someone in his class had it and when the class had been told about it he had identified with the symptoms (this was about a year pre his dx) so much so he came home and asked me if I knew about AS. AFter I told him about his dx we borrowed the book from the school that he had heard about AS from and went through it again together.

I havent told Dd3 yet she is 9 and was dx'ed last september. I was going to tell her this holiday but decided it was a bit silly as school is our only support and we wont have it until september.

The SENCO at her school has got some stuff to work through with her but she has been snowed under with transitions so it will have to be when they go back now.

She does know she has SN's though just not the actually term ASD.