Lawrence Sapp was a 21-year-old college sophomore yearning for more independence when he ran into a problem: Despite repeated attempts, he couldn’t pass Maryland’s driver’s permit exam.
His difficulty didn’t come from inattentiveness or a lack of trying. According to his mother, he carefully studied the state’s preparation materials, scoring perfectly on practice tests at home. He even passed the written part of a driver’s ed class.
But Lawrence has autism and a cognitive impairment. The vocabulary on the state test was beyond his reach, and multiple-choice questions that asked for the best answer also confused him. Lawrence knew that the legal blood-alcohol limit was 0.08, for example — not that it wasn’t 0.05.
“I got so mad,” he said. “The test was just too hard. … I just want to drive.”
Lawrence failed the test at least 20 times, according to his mother. He passed after his mother asked for reasonable accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act: for him to be given a version of the test he had practiced with. Lawrence’s experience led Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration to change the test and make it more accessible for everyone.
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The overhaul comes as part of an MVA effort to make its testing more inclusive, accommodating any would-be driver, whatever their literacy or language skills, who can navigate roads safely. Last month, the agency announced that its driver’s manual will be offered in “plain language,” defined by authorities as language aimed at fifth-to-eighth-grade reading levels. Tests in plain language will also be available in October.
Texts written in plain language use basic words, put important information first and avoid acronyms, statistics and graphs. Interest in plain language dates back to at least the 1950s, and Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter endorsed its use by the government in the 1970s. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Plain Writing Act, mandating that agencies use language that is “clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience.”
In an interview, MVA Administrator Christine Nizer said the agency just wants to make sure every driver “remembers information and retains it.” In a state with changing demographics, this also means translating the manual into more than a dozen languages, including Yoruba and American Sign Language.
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The new materials were developed with the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council, which offers advice in a plain-language manual. According to council executive director Rachel London, there are about 100,000 people with developmental disabilities in Maryland and, as of 2021, 38 percent of people in the state spoke English “less than very well.” Plain language makes the test more accessible and is also more easily translated into other languages, she said.
“The use of plain language helps everyone,” she said in an email.
A comparison of the new manual and the old one shows the differences. Sentences are shorter. Big words are jettisoned, as is the passive voice.
The old manual, for example, explains that right-of-way rules “determine which driver should yield the right-of-way and the sequence for entering and driving through an intersection or other driving scenarios.” The new manual’s crisp definition: “Right-of-way rules help keep everyone on the road safe.”
Officials hope these changes will eliminate obstacles like those the Sapp family had to overcome.
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Dee Sapp, Lawrence’s mother and chair of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council, knew her son had enough knowledge to drive safely. He just didn’t have the language skills to prove it to the state. When Maryland’s written tests didn’t match what he’d studied, he got questions wrong.
For instance, study materials explained that drinking and driving increases a driver’s response time. Lawrence understood that. But on the test, a question asked whether drinking and driving made a driver “less agile.” Lawrence got this question wrong because he didn’t know what “agile” meant. The word wasn’t in the practice materials, and it wasn’t a word he used in everyday conversation. Lawrence is “very literal,” according to Dee.
“You need to be able to understand what’s being asked of you,” she said. “It’s demoralizing.”
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Dee tried to find other ways to help her son, such as having an MVA employee administer the test orally in a quiet room where he could better focus. She even had employees try to rephrase the questions.
The test itself was the problem, Dee realized. She lobbied officials to test her theory — to let Lawrence take a version of a practice exam, which more closely matched his study materials, rather than the actual test.
Last year, the agency permitted the experiment. The results were undeniable.
“He was done in five minutes,” Dee said. Her son’s score: 25 out of 25.
“It feels great simply because I know the barriers it created,” Dee said. “A lot of times things are exclusionary without people knowing it.”
Alexis Brown, a nine-year MVA employee, also celebrated Lawrence passing his test. A customer agent at the agency’s Largo office, Brown said she watched Lawrence fail the test at least four times — even after administering it orally to him in a room secluded from the hustle and bustle of the MVA office.
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This frustrated her. Brown has three sons with their own developmental issues who require specialized schooling.
“I was looking at my son,” she said of her experience watching Lawrence fail the test. “I became more passionate about this young man. I saw that he really wanted to pass.”
Brown knew safety was important but thought people should be given the opportunity to succeed. The MVA lets would-be drivers who don’t speak English take the test through translators. In a sense, Lawrence needed a translator, too.
“A lot of times we look at these students, kids, and customers with disabilities and … focus so much on disability and not so much on their abilities,” she said. “My quest is to — while keeping safety first — also make them understand that, hey, there is potential.”
Dee said Brown was instrumental in helping her son get over the finish line.
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“She was very encouraging every week,” she said. “She made him comfortable coming back.”
Lawrence has more work to do. After all, he still only has his learner’s permit. He may move to California after graduation. If he does, he’ll probably need a car.
Still, the end is in sight.
“I still have to do the parking and the drive-around and take the test, and I’ll be done,” he said. “The first thing is drive safe and be careful. That’s all. I don’t want to get pulled over by a cop or be in a car accident. I’m not a drunk driver.”
Dee said her son’s driver’s license will give him power to explore a world that, in many ways, has been closed off because of his disability.
“It’s huge,” she said. “For a lot of people, it’s a rite of passage. It’s make-or-break when it comes to independence.”
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