Understanding is a cognitive function aiming to produce in the mind images of objects, events or conditions creating reality through the interpretation of the data coming from the outside and produced by the mind. As a result of understanding the speech receiver reconstructs the information intended by the speaker and expressed in a particular form of language. In the activities of understanding one can distinguish a level of the concrete and the abstract. The reality reconstructed at the concrete level is flat and it allows the reaction based on specific stimuli from the outside world. The essence of understanding at the abstract level is the formation of meaningful relations connected not only by signals that determinate specific behavior, but planning one’s own cognitive activity and the use of words as an expression of one’s own thoughts and desires. In the diagnosis and treatment of comprehension disorders it should be assumed that the understanding of a word as a representative of some possible specific objects and situations does not ensure a hierarchical orientation – which relates to the ability to assimilate new information and to reorganize the cognitive models. It is the understanding at the abstract level which is unique for the human species.
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