Graphic novel reading comprehension in Chinese children with developmental language disorder (DLD)

Abstract

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have consistently showed poor performances in reading comprehension. Extending from previous studies that presented pure-text, this study aims to test the performances of graphic novel reading. We tested 24 Chinese children who have been diagnosed as DLD and 24 typical readers matched with age and nonverbal IQ. These children were asked to complete a battery of tests assessing graphic novel reading comprehension and related visual-cognitive skills. The results of group comparison indicated that children with DLD performed similarly to the typical readers in graphic novel comprehension. Moreover, significant links between comic convention understanding and both passage and graphic novel reading were found in both groups. Our results imply the benefits of using graphic novel to facilitate reading to learn in children with DLD.