Beyond Words Ep. 19 | Comics and Visual Language with Dr. Neil Cohn

In this episode of Beyond Words, Garrett Oyama speaks with Dr. Neil Cohn, cognitive scientist and director of the Visual Language Lab, about how drawings and comics function as full-fledged visual languages.

They explore how visual narratives have structure, grammar, and vocabulary, and why understanding comics isn’t as automatic as we might assume. Dr. Cohn challenges the idea that language is purely speech-based, introducing a multimodal language faculty that includes vocal, bodily, and graphic expression.

Along the way, they connect language to drawing, gesture, writing systems, and even AI, offering a powerful reframe of what it means to communicate.

🎙️ Topics include:

• Comics as structured visual languages
• Multimodal language faculty (speech, gesture, drawing)
• How children learn visual narratives
• Why image-based tasks may be misleading in assessment
• Visual language and neurodevelopmental differences
• Implications for speech therapy and AAC

Learn more about Neil and purchase his books here: https://visuallanguagelab.com/

Get ASHA CEUs here: https://www.speechtherapypd.com/courses/comics-visual-language