The purpose of this study was to investigate the reading comprehension abilities of those with mild and moderate dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and compare their performance to that of a sample of non-demented elderly. Thirty-eight male subjects were used, 20 non-demented elderly, nine mild DAT and nine moderate DAT. All were administered level B of the NRST. This test contains questions requiring three levels of inference: literal, translational, and high-level inference.