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If you’ve never heard the scream of an autistic child, count your blessings. It’s inconceivable how a single, shrill sound could convey so much pain, confusion, and anger. The scream comes from so deep inside them it sounds more animal than human. And yet, it’s so shrill and hollow that it’s ethereal.

Often words are woven into the scream — “I hate you!” or “Get away from me!” — to produce a genderless voice. Add the repetitive nature of what they’re screaming and it’s not difficult to see how this could have once been labeled “demon possession.”

Autism, in the time of a rage, wipes away all differences between afflicted children — gender, intelligence, everything — and replaces it with a screech. The rage contorts the face, flails the limbs, and lashes out at anything in the vicinity. The scream fills whatever space you’re in, seeming at times almost like another entity, hovering around the child as you try to isolate her so that so can calm herself.

If it happens around children who are not accustomed to it, the bewilderment and pity in their eyes is striking. And it’s impossible to deny the spark of fear as well.

Often the screaming subsides as quickly as it comes on. A raging child might notice there’s an echo in the room where he is, and that will be enough to derail the rage and pacify the child.

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It’s a full moon, and I’m starting to wonder just what effects that can have on a person’s psyche.

For the past week, I’ve been working elementary school children, the majority of whom have various degrees of high-functioning autism. Today was an especially difficult day, with rages set off every few minutes. Almost to a child they had a breakdown of some sort or another.

“It’s a full moon,” one of the assistants said.

There was a time I would have been skeptical of such a claim. However, with a week of experience under my built, I know how these children usually behave. I saw today that there were quantifiably more eruptions than usual.

While I’m more than a little skeptical about the effects of stars on humans, moon and wind can certainly have demonstrable effects on people. In southern Poland, there’s a warm wind that blows during autumn and spring that brings with it sleeplessness (Once, during one of these periods, I couldn’t sleep for four nights) and an increase in irritability with everyone from students to office workers. Could I have been seeing the effects of the moon today?

It seems so medieval. “Beware the full moon!” Our issues today are attributable to most everything but phases of the moon, but perhaps the ancients got it right.

Yet, it’s not the cause. This article discusses the impact of environmental issues on autistic children.

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