During the late sixties, Marc Gold, then a special education teacher in East Los Angeles, began to formulate a conceptual framework of instruction based on a few fundamental beliefs: a) His students with severe disabilities had much more potential than anyone realized; b) All people with disabilities should have the opportunity to live their lives much like everyone else; and c) Everyone can learn if we can figure out how to teach them.

These beliefs led Marc to pursue a doctorate at the University of Illinois and to formalize a system of teaching skills to persons with severe disabilities, especially people labeled mentally retarded. By the early seventies, Marc was teaching at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and he was lecturing throughout the United States and Canada. His lectures involved presenting three day workshops on this new systematic training approach he called "Try Another Way". This system provided an organizational framework, instructional strategies and a value-base useful for teaching persons with even the most severe disabilities to perform sophisticated tasks or competencies, as they were referred to in the jargon of the system. The professional literature of the human service field during the mid 1970's contains a rich collection of Marc's research validating his approach and the belief that all people can learn...

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