Philadelphia The City of Brotherly Love and Multiple Gunshot Wounds <| sep |> It is hard to generalize it , since , from what I know , autism comes in so many forms . What I can tell you is how a meltdown happens for my niece Its a sudden burst of extreme anger , agression , sadness . She starts cursing , screaming , crying , sometimes hitting . For someone who doesnt know anything about autism it might just appear as a tantrum , but it isnt . My niece is not in control of herself in this situation , in fact she doesnt even remember what she did or said after the meltdown . From what Ive learned the meltdown , even though it may appear to come out of nowhere , is steadily building up under the surface , triggered by maybe just a small thing that we didnt even recognise unlike you , she might not even know what the reason for the meltdown was . And this is where the service dog helps he literally smells when the adrenaline is building up in her and is trained to warn a second person that this is happening my sister or the teacher . Also he gets trained to calm her down during the meltdown for example by lying on her .