Explaining autism to Kindergartners

This past week Collin's school celebrated Exceptional Children's Week. This included a music presentation and awards and a day in which parents came into the classroom to help children try to feel what it is like to have a disability.In Collin's typical classroom where he spends part of his day, the kids learned about loss of hearing, loss of sight,and autism. The room was set up into stations and the kids rotated to spend 15 minutes with a parent at each station to learn about these disabilities. My husband and I worked the autism station. The teacher had provided an activity which included sand paper and the kids felt how rough the sand paper was and it was explained that this is what something as simple as a tag on a shirt could feel like to a child with autism. My husband and I brought our own ideas and demonstrated with a couple activities as well. We told the children to think of something that smells really great to them (like chocolate chip cookies) and helped them to understand that to a child with autism, this could smell really awful. We rearranged sentences to make nonsense out of them and explained that sometime when you talk to a child with autism, the sentence may sound like nonsense. We talked about how loud noises can really bother children with autism and a couple of other activities. Kindergartners are hilarious. One kid diagnosed his dog with autism because the dog hates loud noises like fire alarms and trucks. Makes sense to me! Many of the times when we would describe something, the kids would say"just like Collin does". I could feel tears well up in my eyes a couple times but I was not sure if it was because of that overwhelming feeling I get every once in a while of.."why my child?" or was it that these kids were so great. They never make fun of Collin. They think he is cool. They like that he is different and think it is great to help him with his lunch or point him in the right direction is PE. They tell their mom's that they can't have chocolate cake at their birthday parties because Collin can't eat it. They really find him interesting. I have been in the classroom many times and the kids don't make fun of him and enjoy helping him out. We couldn't ask for a better situation at his school this year. Collin has a typical kindergarten, a special ed kindergarten, an adult facilitator, kids assigned to help him at places like lunch and he receives OT and Speech each week.We call Collin the Mayor of New Prospect because it seems like every body in the school of 600 knows him.The front office staff knows him by name. (we are late frequently and they always walk him to his classroom). The school psychologist has been testing him and just loves him and is impressed by his development of skills. The OT loves   Collin and has a song he sang to her on her cell phone. Many different kids, parents and staff throughout the school know Collin and they know he is autistic or has some sort of disorder, but they welcome him and treat him like they should. I am very happy with his situationand hope it continues in the future. Exceptional Children's week was to celebrate children with disabilities but I found that the kids without the disabilities really have been exceptional too.