Encountered this passage when I was doing my professional readings:
"Behavior coaching refers to the individualized intervention designed for the adolescent with special needs (ASN) to enable him/her to acquire psychosocial-educational skills and competencies consistent with the normalization perspective."
Now, can anyone tell me what that passage means in plain and simple English?
It looks like Arvin Ortiz has stirred the hornet’s nest with that question of his.
Anyway, I simply would like to add that Maxsims had very admirably and efficiently peeled off the layers of gobbledygook from that turgid health-care jargon, but in the process, I’m afraid that he had thrown away the baby with the bathwater. It’s the first time I’m encountering the term ASN myself, but based on my cursory research, behavior coaching turns out to mean more than just the punishment of naughty kids, and it’s not funny stuff either.
I found out that ASN or adolescents with special needs belong to a larger category of SNC or special needs children. They are children whose emotional or physical disorders, age, race, membership in a sibling group, history of abuse, or other factors contribute to a lengthy stay in foster care. Guidelines for classifying a child as special needs vary by country to country.
According to the Kentucky Adoption Services website, “Common special needs conditions and diagnoses include: serious medical conditions; emotional and behavioral disorders; history of abuse or neglect; medical or genetic risk due to familial mental illness or parental substance abuse.”
A broader definition of SNC
has been adopted by a roundtable of Canadian policymakers to ensure the full extension of rights to all children living in rural and Northern Canada. According to this definition, SNC “includes children and adolescents who require additional resources because of exceptional gifts and talents, physical, sensory, cognitive and learning challenges, mental health issues as well as problems due to social, cultural, linguistic or family factors.”
Another subset of SNC is SEN, or children with special educational needs (SEN). SEN are children who, as a result of a physical or psychologically based disability, are unable to achieve the goals of the national curriculum without receiving special provision. The assessment procedure for determining a SEB is carried out by the school district board upon the application of the parents, the head teacher of the school, or by the board itself with reference to expert opinions.
Based on these findings, I would like to offer this more sympathetic boiled down version of the original gobbledygooky statement as requested by Arvin Ortiz:
“Behavior coaching is the one-on-one teaching of adolescents with special needs (ASN) to help them achieve a normal life.”
By the way, Arvin Ortiz, I was able to trace that passage back to a feature story,
“Behavior coaching for teens with special needs,” in the October 11, 2009 of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Like you, thousands must have been semantically befuddled by all the technical gobbledygook that litters that story. How I wish the desk and section editors of that broadsheet would exercise their copyediting skills as efficiently as maxsims for their readers’ benefit—if with a little more circumspection and a little more compassion for the human condition perhaps!