A simple and easy-to-implement discrete approximation is proposed for one-dimensional higher-order integral fractional Laplacian (IFL), and our method is applied to discrete the fractional biharmonic equation, multi-term fractional differential model and fractal KdV equation. Based on the generating function, a fractional analogue of the central difference scheme to higher-order IFL is provided, the convergence of the discrete approximation is proved. Extensive numerical experiments are provided to confirm our analytical results. Moreover, some new observations are discovered from our numerica...