Under what circumstances do you think it makes sense to explain to a child that a friend of theirs has autism?

I am a parent of a high functioning autistic child. There are a few things that should be done in this situation. Your first question. I believe that kids are smart . It is important to educated whenever you can. I love the fact that your child is learning about autism now so when she becomes an adult she wont be ignorant like most adults are. I cant tell you how many people thing they know anything about autism when they have never known or done research on it. My son just turned seven and next school year they are putting him in general ed. last year he was in a regular classroom for about an hour a day. I don't want him to get teased so what Did i invited his regular class and his autistic class. we went all out did a carnival theme with carnival games my family even dressed like clowns. but it gave us a chance to meet some of the typical functioning kids parents. the whole reason we had this huge party was so that next year their wont be Also of questions the kids were afraid to ask and if there were question they would be afraid to ask and at the party there were a lot of questions. I fell good about next year for my son because they have answers. Second thing is were is the austisic child's parent as a parent of autism they need to be taking the opportunity to be correcting their child's behavior when they are saying mean things. I wouldn't correct him yourself cause there are little tricks but that is something the parent needs to be doing. The only way he will learn to be "socially acceptable" is to be taught at the moment. and the more he gets away with it the harder it will be for him to stop