Helping very mature 8 year old understand autism?

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I wondered whether anyone could help with a useful, (and positively worded) explanation or resources as DS hates being talked about and yet if his assessment confirms it I may at some stage need to explain to him that he sees the world differently (or indeed that other people are wired differently to him ).
He is so wonderful the way he is and I want to explain in a gentle way that celebrates all he is and yet it feels important to be clear as he is increasingly struggling in a world that he can’t always understand.

The main issues affecting him are not fitting in easily with boys in his class (the girls fully embrace him) and recently some bullying now.
He was struggling with noise but has been moved to a smaller class and commented it’s quieter .
He’s also quite troubled by strong anxieties and the minute we identify one and reassure him it can move onto something new

ideally I’d love to help him to understand what being autistic is and to become very comfortable with the idea of it so that he can explain to people himself without feeling it is something bad, just different.

So far the only conversation we have had was when I overheard the DC talking about someone’s sibling having autism as if it was something sad so I immediately said that people with autism are often particularly clever or good at things and tried to bring out the positive as DS can be incredibly easily bruised or sensitive about himself .
I hope this is an honest approach as he mostly manages and maybe I need to explain the spectrum thing means it is harder for some people?

When my DS was diagnosed, we were given little cards with different attributes on them. Things like being good at focusing or finding loud noises difficult.

We sat with him and he sorted them into things that were definitely like him, a bit like him and not at all like him. At the end we explained that the reason he bad some of those attributes was because of something called Autism.

We looked at the resources on the Scottish Autism website and he was able to watch videos on youtube (that we'd watched previously) of other kids explaining how autism affects them.

My son is very high functioning and we discussed it as a spectrum that brings advantages along with extra challenges. He was able to see from watching the videos that the challenges are different for each autistic person.

My Superhero Brain is a lovely book to read with them too.

Thank you so much.
Was it a smooth thing for your son to understand or did he mind and feel different? I do like the idea of the cards helping to see which bits felt most relevant .

I will find out about Superhero brain and thank you so much

He was relieved. He said he'd known he was different to other people and was miserable about it.

We didn't mention autism throughout the diagnosis process, we just discussed it from the point of view of finding out what we could do to help his anxiety. It wasn't until after ADOS and it was confirmed we mentioned it.

He is quite accepting of it now but doesn't want people to know. He'd never tell his friends or peers. He's much more accepting of himself though now. He used to be incredibly defensive and deny finding certain things hard. Now he'll chat about them.

He's also less ashamed of meltdowns and we have discovered a lot more of his quirks that he'd kept hidden from us. Things like navigating by remembering the exact number of footsteps between buildings etc.

Overall, we've had a positive experience. Seeking diagnosis was absolutely the right thing to do for him. As a parent it's been a mixed bag. It's still bloody hard and exhausting at times despite how well he copes. It was harder than I expected it to be to come to terms with and him accepting who he is is something we're still workkng on.

You've had some really good advice already.

See if this will help. the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

Some kids like the analogy with computers. All computers work, all of them can do the same things, most use Windows, but some use Mac. they achieve the same end result, but use different processes (or processors) to do that. Different processing doesn't mean inferior, different is not wrong, different can be better.

These are lovely answers and so helpful- thank you so much. I think this will all be a great help

Ds loved Rosie King's short film:

DS (8, no diagnosis) and I recently read 'The London Eye Mystery' by Siobhan Dowd. It is not an explanation as such, but DS enjoyed it, and recognised himself in the main character: "I didn't work out the mystery, but my brain works on a different operating system too"!

Thanks for this, I have a 7 yr old son who's starting to be the outcast at school and I'm finding it heartbreaking. We need to have the discussion about why some might not get him and his quirky ways 😞

If you look up Purple Ella on YouTube (who is autistic herself) she has an interview with her autistic son from when he was about that age which might be helpful (and also with her younger NT son and her even younger autistic daughter, which may be useful if your DS has siblings).

I have two boys both with autism so will be broaching this with them both. Thing I'm finding difficult is I don't know any different because these two are my only children. I'm starting to see the social interaction divide more in my 7 yr old who's in juniors now. Thank you for the info I shall take a look.