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Attainment Company is an independent, family owned business based in Verona, Wisconsin. Since 1979 Attainment Company has been dedicated to helping people with cognitive disabilities succeed at school, work and life. Don Bastian, founder and CEO, created Attainment's first product when he was a program coordinator at the Rock County Rehabilitation Services (now called Kandu Industries) in Beloit, Wisconsin. The Work Skill Development Program, which used a task analysis approach to teach work behaviors to young adults with disabilities, is the foundation for our present Work Activity Packages.
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Soon after Attainment's inception, we began publishing functional life skill curricula. A picture-based cooking program called Look n' Cook was soon followed by Illustrated Shopping Cards, Looking Good, Keeping House, Stepping Out, and Plan Your Day. These unique programs were the first to combine picture cueing, story-based instructional video and structured lesson plans. They have all been updated and are still popular today.
Times change and so does Attainment. We created our first assistive technology device and instructional software in 1993. The Pocket Talker was known for its easy use, durability and value. These qualities are still inherent in the contemporary GoTalk line. The newest version of our first software program, Dollars and Cents, anchors the Attainment Workstation, an all-in-one touch screen computer preloaded with 44 Attainment programs to teach math, literacy, life and work skills.
In 2001 Attainment launched the IEP Resources publishing brand. Its premier publication, Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives, by Barbara Bateman, has sold over 60,000 copies. IEP Resources is now a leading publisher focusing on critical issues in special education.
Attainment has a growing older adult product line. Award-winners include Aerobics of the Mind, Mind Your Mind and the DVDs — What Every Caregiver Needs to Know About Alzheimer's Disease and Straight Talk About Dementia.
For some time, Attainment Company has been collaborating with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to publish research-based curricula for students with significant developmental disabilities. The first product was the ground-breaking Early Literacy Skill Builders, the only scientifically-based reading program for this population. The new ELSB Software has made this rigorous curriculum easier to teach and more fun to learn. We have subsequently published Teaching to Standards MATH and Teaching to Standards SCIENCE, Building with Stories, and Pathways to Literacy.
Recently, we have added to our successful line of augmentative communication products. In 2010 we released the highly-acclaimed GoTalk Express 32. New for 2011 are GoTalk 32+, Big Button communicators, and a new version GoTalk Overlay Software.
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