words instead of hitting

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Hi,
I am a kindergarten Autism teacher and I am working with my students on being able to communicate by using words when they are frustrated or angry, instead of yelling or hitting someone. We have read social stories, taken breaks when angry, and tried to coach them on what to say. Any other ideas? Thanks!

When I was young my mother would instruct me in breathing exercises. She had to keep telling me how to breathe to keep me distracted from my negative feelings and this would help me calm down. It has helped me for nineteen years. I admit it does not always work for me now but I was rather effective when I was between the ages of 2 and 12.

I know when I'm overloaded or upset I tend to lose skills. It's possible your students may become nonverbal with strong emotion.

In this book there's a great description of a teaching technique to get kids to learn exactly this that involves discussing the physical action they took vs. the incident vs. verbal options and assigning numeric scores on a scale of 1-10 that rate the appropriateness of the actions & reasons for them. Apparently it's often found that kids on the spectrum will perceive an incident as a lot stronger than it truly is, and their reaction a lot more appropriate than it is, and that having an adult explain that the incident was only really a 2/10 on a scale of something that should anger people vs. an 8, and that their response was way overblown at 9 or 10 vs. an appropriate level really helps. I think the quantifiable scales and relative comparisons used really make sense to our logical brains. I'm sure I haven't been exactly crystal clear about how this technique works, but I hope you get the basics of it & opt to pick up and read the book for this info and everything else you'll learn from it if you haven't read it before.

I really appreciate all of the input, thank you!