Children begin to talk several years before reading and writing makes sense to them. People with a cognitive disability often remember how to read and write but the content of the words does not make sense to them.
I still remember the day the big coffee pot in our OT clinic broke. First, we placed a small sign by the spigot that read "out of order." People kept asking about the coffee. We changed the location and then the size of the sign. Next, we tried changing the words to "no coffee." Finally, we tested reading ability and comprehension. Most of the people who spoke English could read correctly but not understand that there wasn't any coffee when the sign said no coffee. These same people could answer questions and tell stories that were about a paragraph in length. The same pattern has been found occasionally in ACL 3 High when the person has a history of talking a lot. More often, the following pattern is found in ACL 4 Low.
The pattern is to have the verbal ability to talk, briefly. They may:
- Answer questions with a word or a sentence or two.
- Tell a short story about their past.
- Engage in a concrete conversation.
- Read signs and simple instructions correctly and not understand what they just read.
- Imitate demonstrated directions without listening to the verbal instructions.
The person's history usually explains the variations in the pattern. When a person has a history of being a talker (talking a lot every day) the length of their paragraphs is often longer with better vocabularies than the person who did not talk much. If the person spoke a second language most of their adult life, they often return to their primary language as a part of this pattern.