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At home: activities for people with aphasia.

Aphasia recovery takes time and repetition. Download these free language activities to practice at home!

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Compound Words - Tips for Helpers

How to help your loved one with speech therapy practice.

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Auditory comprehension and writing activity, aphasia materials.

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Speech Therapy Activities for Aphasia

Aphasia is a communication disorder that can occur after a stroke or other brain injury. It affects the ability to process and understand language. A person with aphasia may have difficulty speaking, reading, writing, and understanding others. However, aphasia does not affect intelligence. There are many different speech therapy activities that can help improve communication for people with aphasia. This post will discuss some of these activities.

In this article we will discuss:

What do people with aphasia want?

Types of aphasia, what kind of speech therapy treatments are available, how can i find a speech therapist.

Adult speech therapy

Worrall et al. (2011) interviewed 50 participants with aphasia after stroke in 2011, from Worrall and colleagues’ study. What people with aphasia want the most is to regain the ability to communicate with friends and family. Other important things people with aphasia want are to be able to communicate their needs and wants, improve their understanding of other people, and engage in leisure activities.

Broca’s aphasia

Broca’s aphasia is a language disorder in adults that results to having trouble speaking. People with broca’s aphasia may speak in short, choppy sentences, and often have difficulty finding the right words. Broca’s Aphasia is caused by damage to the Broca’s area, which is located in the frontal lobe of the brain. Broca's aphasia treatment looks at a person's ability to utilize expressive language.

Symptoms include:

Speaking in short, choppy sentences

Difficulty finding the right words

Difficulty with grammar

Slow speech

Difficulty producing words that are meaningful

Get professional help for adults with aphasia

aphasia speech therapy

Wernicke’s aphasia

Another language disorder in adults include Wernicke’s aphasia. People with Wernicke’s aphasia often speak fluently, but their speech is jumbled and hard to understand. They may not be aware that their speech is unclear. Wernicke’s aphasia is caused by damage to the Wernicke’s area, which is located in the temporal lobe of the brain.

Jumpled speech that is hard to understand

Speech that sounds fluent but makes no sense

Difficulty understanding spoken or written language

Unaware of errors in speech

Trouble naming objects

Global aphasia

Global aphasia is a language disorder in adults that have the most severe symptoms of all three types of aphasia. They often cannot speak at all, and if they can, their speech is very hard to understand. Global aphasia is caused by damage to large areas of the brain that are responsible for language.

Very difficult or impossible to speak

Cannot understand spoken or written language

May be able to say a few words

There are many different types of adult speech therapy treatments available for people with aphasia. Some common aphasia treatments include:

Constraint-Induced Language Therapy (CILT)

This adult aphasia speech therapy technique aims to inhibit the use of gestures and make the patients use their words by playing a game. The primary goal of CILT is not for the patient to learn or gain new knowledge of language! The main goal is to develop an intentional bias to use spoken language.

CILT is guided by three principles namely:

Massed practice

Inhibit the use of gestures in all context

Verbal communication

speech therapy activities for aphasia

Melodic intonation therapy

This adult speech therapy treatment uses melody and rhythm to help people with aphasia produce speech sounds. MIT is a formal language technique that uses an aphasic’s preserved singing ability to sing to improve language expression. It targets the musical element of speech (rhythm and melody). This aids in communication, as it activates the areas of the undamaged right cerebral hemisphere for language processing that is meant for the left cerebral hemisphere.

Speech-generating devices

These adult speech therapy devices allow people with aphasia to communicate by pressing buttons that produce pre-recorded or computer-generated speech. This is an approach to both receptive and expressive aphasia treatment that includes a flexible system of strategies and devices designed to supplement or replace, either permanently or temporarily, insufficient of ineffective communication skills.

Speech-generating devices can:

Provides opportunities for persons with disabilities to meet their communication needs by participating in daily activities.

To compensate for language impairments and facilitate the restoration of language.

To support people with aphasia through adequate functional communication skills necessary for expressing their complex communication needs.

Seeking speech therapy after a stroke can be an important step to recovery. Speech-language pathologists are trained to treat aphasia. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with aphasia, ask your doctor for a referral to a speech-language pathologist. You can contact us at Better Speech for more information about finding a speech therapist in your area.

reading passages for adults speech therapy

There are many different speech therapy activities that can help people with aphasia improve their communication skills at home. Such speech therapy can be particularly helpful for stroke patients or TBI patients. Here are a few examples:

1. Word games

One of the speech therapy activities for aphasia is word games. Word games can help improve vocabulary and word-finding skills! Word games work best if the game is played with a focus on a specific theme (e.g., animals, food, transportation, etc.). They can also be a fun way to practice communication!

Try playing some of these word games with a loved one:

Word Ladder

2. Reading passages for adult speech therapy

Reading passage is another speech therapy activity for aphasia. This activity can help improve reading comprehension and fluency. It is a great way to practice language skills.

Reading passages for adults speech therapy include:

Easy Reader Classics

The Aphasia Reading List

3. Communication boards

Communication boards are a great way to help people with aphasia communicate. They can be used to point to words or pictures to form sentences. They can be used to help with word-finding. Try making a communication board with a loved one. You can use pictures, words, or both.

4. Articulation exercises

Articulation exercises are speech therapy activity for aphasia. These exercises can help improve the clarity of speech.It is a great way to practice using different sounds.

Try doing some of these articulation exercises with a loved one:

Tongue twisters

Articulation cards

5. Life story activities

Life story activities are an important speech therapy activity for aphasia. They can help people with aphasia connect with their past and present. They can even help improve communication skills.

Try doing some of these life story activities with a loved one:

Memory books

Family tree

Timeline of life events

speech therapy

6. Conversation starters

Conversation starters are a great way to help people with aphasia practice communication. They can be used to help break the ice in social situations.

Try using some of these conversation starters with a loved one:

How was your day?

What did you do today?

What are your plans for tomorrow?

7. Social activities

Social activities are speech therapy activity for aphasia. They can help improve communication skills and social interaction. They can be a lot of fun for adults to recall.

Try doing some of these social activities with a loved one:

Going for walks

Playing games

Going out to eat

Speech therapy activities should be tailored to the individual needs of each person with aphasia. Some people may benefit from one or two activities, while others may need a more comprehensive approach that includes several different types of activities. At Better Speech, we offer online speech therapy services convenient for you and tailored to your child's individual needs. Our services are affordable and effective - get Better Speech now.

About the Author

aphasia speech therapy homework

Mikee Larrazabal

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist with 14 years of experience working with children and adults who have communication difficulties. I completed my Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science at Cebu Doctors' University and have been helping people overcome their communication challenges ever since.

I have worked with individuals of different ages, including toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children, adults and seniors. I'm passionate about speech therapy and take great satisfaction in helping people overcome their communication challenges and improve their lives through better communication skills. In my spare time I like reading books, going hiking in nature and taking care of my dog Locas.

  • At Home Speech Therapy
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How To: Phonological Treatment for Writing

 5 min read

Back when you were learning to read, you may have been taught that the letter B makes the “buh” sound, like in “boot.” This is known as letter-to-sound correspondence, or more technically, grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. You then used this information when you sounded out words you were reading, and then in reverse when figuring out how to spell words. But when people develop aphasia after a stroke, they may lose this knowledge. This can make it very difficult to read or write.

aphasia speech therapy homework

The Treatment: Phonological Treatment

Phonological treatment is used to improve sound-to-letter and letter-to-sound correspondence to improve agraphia (difficulty writing) due to aphasia. It targets written expression at the word-level by enhancing phonological processing skills.

Phonological treatment is the middle step in a three-step treatment sequence developed by Dr. Pélagie Beeson’s lab at the University of Arizona. We’ve already covered the first step: Anagram, Copy, and Recall Treatment (ACRT) in another article.

Who Would Benefit from Phonological Treatment for Written Expression?

Phonological treatment has been found to be an effective treatment for individuals with non-fluent aphasia and anomic aphasia with phonological agraphia or surface agraphia. 

Before clients can begin treatment, they must first be able to spell keywords that begin with the initial sounds/phonemes being trained. If the client is unable to complete this task, it is recommended they start with ACRT to train a set of keywords. Once mastered, phonological treatment can begin.

A client may be appropriate for phonological treatment if they demonstrate difficulty with reading and spelling non-words, deleting or replacing phonemes in a written word, or translating phonemes to graphemes. These individuals may frequently demonstrate phonemic paraphasias in speech as well.

What You’ll Need to Do Phonological Treatment

Phonological treatment can be completed with minimal preparation and materials. The clinician will need:

Pen or pencil with paper

A set of keywords that begin with the initial phonemes to be trained.

  • The client should be able to write all of the keywords
  • Keywords can be individualized and personally relevant, so a family member’s name that begins with a certain sound may make a perfect keyword

Pictures of the keywords

Download this “how to” guide now..

Get your free PDF on how to do Phonological Treatment with and without apps. Includes a list of keywords used in the Advanced Writing Therapy app.

How To Phonological Treatment preview

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How to Start Phonological Treatment

Phonological treatment uses a cueing hierarchy to train targeted graphemes and phonemes. Here’s an example of sound-to-letter training using the phoneme /m/:

Say, “Write the letter that makes the sound /m/.”

  • If correct, move on to the next phoneme.
  • If incorrect, proceed to step 2.

Say, “Think of your keyword for /m/. Try to write your keyword.”

  • If correct, say, “Yes, mug is your keyword. Mug starts with /m/. Underline the /m/ sound in mug.” Repeat step 1 or move to the next phoneme.
  • If incorrect, go to step 3.

Show the picture and say, “Your keyword for /m/ is mug. Write mug. Now underline the /m/ sound in mug.”

  • If correct, repeat step 1 or move to the next phoneme.
  • If incorrect, go to step 4.

Provide a model for the keyword and say, “Your keyword is mug. Copy the word mug. Now underline the /m/ in mug.”

Consonants should be trained using 4 sets of 5 consonants. Criterion is met when the client is able to correctly write and say each set of phonemes with 80% accuracy over 2 sessions. For those with severe apraxia of speech, it’s enough to show mastery of sound-to-letter matching, as letter-to-sound may be too challenging. 

Here’s a home practice video by SLP Christie Shultz from the Aphasia Research Project lab that shows how someone can practice their keywords at home using an unlisted video on YouTube provided by the clinician:

After establishing consonants, vowels are trained in 2 sets of 6. Vowel training will follow the same protocol as consonants with the exception of having two keywords for each vowel. This is because some vowels have more than one typical corresponding grapheme (e.g., ee and ea for /i/). 

Here’s another home practice video all about vowels:

Continuing on with Phonological Treatment

Letter-to-sound training can then be completed using a similar hierarchy, showing the target grapheme to the client, and asking for the keyword for that letter. Get extra practice by creating a matching game by laying out a limited set of the keyword pictures. Ask the client to find the keyword for a sound you say. 

After training all the phonemes, work begins learning to blend real words and non-words. The client hears a word, repeats it, and then writes the keyword for each sound they hear. They can then combine the target letter in each keyword to write the word or non-word.

Here’s a video of what real word blending looks like for homework:

If you’d like to see non-word blending, follow this link to another video .

This will get the person close to the correct spelling in most cases, or at least to a point that someone can read the word and make sense of it. But because English has so many irregular spellings, this won’t make for perfect writing. That’s where the third step in the writing treatment comes in: interactive treatment. Read more about interactive treatment here .

Phonological Treatment Using Advanced Writing Therapy

Did you know the Match activity in the Advanced Writing Therapy app was based on phonological treatment? That means it is the perfect companion for treatment and homework for clients. 

Open the Advanced Writing Therapy app and select the Match activity

Choose the Match activity to do phonological training at home

Set up your activity by choosing your levels

Each level is based on the treatment protocol used during development of the phonological treatment. Use the 4 levels of consonants, 2 levels of vowels, and 5 levels of blends to target sound-to-letter training. Work on one at a time, then mix and match.

Choose one or multiple levels of sounds to do phoneme-to-grapheme training

Begin Phonological Treatment

Begin to follow the protocol. Use the on-screen cues for Hear the Keyword , See the Keyword , and Read the Keyword depending on the client’s success throughout the procedure.

Listen to a sound, then touch the letter it goes with for phonological training

Assign Homework

As with any treatment, intensity and repetition are important. Ensure the client can practice independently at home and email the results of each session to the therapist for monitoring and adjustments.

Phonological treatment can be continued at home with Advanced Writing Therapy's detailed reports

Selected Resources & References

The University of Arizona provides resources for the phonological treatment protocol, including variations, and ways to implement homework. They also provide picture stimuli for clinician use. https://aphasia.sites.arizona.edu/content/10

For all 3 treatments in this series, along with a free assessment battery for reading and spelling, check out the Aphasia Research Project’s r esources for professionals .

Beeson, P., Bayley, C., Shultz C., & Rising, K. (2018): Maximising recovery from aphasia with central and peripheral agraphia: The benefit of sequential treatments, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, DOI: 10.1080/09602011.2017.1417873

Beeson, P., Rising, K., Demarco, A. T., Foley, T. H., & Rapcsak, S. Z. (2018). The nature and treatment of phonological text agraphia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 28(4), 568-588. DOI:10.1080/09602011.2016.1199387  Full Text

Beeson, P. M., Rising, K., Kim, E. S., & Rapcsak, S. Z. (2010). A Treatment Sequence for Phonological Alexia/Agraphia. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 53(2), 450. DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0229) Full Text

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Katie Brown , MA, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist in Buffalo, NY. She is the owner of Neuro Speech Solutions , a private practice that specializes in treatment for adult speech, cognitive, & swallowing disorders. Katie is passionate about providing person-centered & functional therapy to help her patients meet their life goals.

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Megan S. Sutton , MS, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and co-founder of Tactus Therapy. She is an international speaker, writer, and educator on the use of technology in adult medical speech therapy. Megan believes that technology plays a critical role in improving aphasia outcomes and humanizing clinical services.

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Improve aphasia outcomes by creating intensive home exercise programs

In this post, I’m sharing how speech-language pathologists can improve aphasia outcomes by creating intensive home exercise programs. The majority of this content comes from Amanda Eaton (SLP, PhD) and Carmen Russell (SLP, PhD), who run an intensive aphasia therapy program at Fontbonne University near St. Louis, Missouri (with their approval).

I attended their seminar at the 2018 ASHA Convention, called “Creating Deliberate Independent Practice Programs for PWA: Insights from Intensive Therapies”. Their presentation was session 1084, in case you want to download their handout from ASHA’s Program Planner .

Free DIRECT download:  Intensive home exercise program chart  (patient handout). ( Email subscribers  get free access to all the resources in the  Free Subscription Library .)

Outline of this post:

Why should we assign intense home exercise programs?

How intense should independent practice be.

  • Tips for choosing therapy goals.

Journaling.

  • Practical tasks.
  • Join Fontbonne University’s Aphasia Group in Quizlet for free access to flashcard sets.
  • Frequent testing is important for learning.
  • Vary the context.
  • 30 activity ideas.
  • Set daily practice targets.
  • A sample schedule.
  • Evidence-based principles of intentional scheduling.
  • Self-ratings and feedback.
  • Trying it out with my first patient.
  • Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts .

We have a big problem in the medical field when it comes to recovery from stroke. In general, people with aphasia (PWA) have far more potential for recovery than insurance will pay for. PWA can make progress for years, really for the rest of their lives , as long as they make the effort. We’re still learning what kind of effort is best, and how intensive that effort has to be in order to see real, meaningful improvement.

Here are the reasons why we should develop intensive independent practice programs (or home exercise programs).

  • PWA have better outcomes from intensive therapy.
  • As long as they continue effortful activities, PWA can potentially continue to improve for the rest of their lives.
  • PWA are often discharged from speech therapy long before they’ve achieved their actual desired outcomes.
  • Incorporating the principles of motor learning and neural plasticity with evidence from research will help bridge the gap between what insurance will pay for and what PWA actually need.

As home health speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and out-patient SLPs, we can play a huge role in setting people up for success over the long term.

First of all, we should:

  • Support our patients in identifying one or two specific desired outcomes.
  • Teach our patients how to turn their desired outcomes into SMART long-term goals.
  • Devise multiple activities to target each goal.
  • Set up an intensive practice schedule.
  • Teach our patients how to monitor and reflect on their own performance.

Megan Sutton of Tactus Therapy has a great blog post on how to engage PWA and their loved ones in writing SMART goals .

Second, we should teach PWA how to identify their own goals, how to create a daily practice schedule, and how to select effortful tasks.

I would add that we should also teach PWA about online and/or community resources, including computer-based therapeutic programs such as Tactus Therapy apps , Constant Therapy , or Lingraphica’s TalkPath Therapy .

return to top

Drs. Eaton and Russell stated that “purposeful intensive homework is how we can realistically achieve outcomes.” Here is what they suggest, based on research:

  • 60-90 minutes of daily practice is a good target.
  • Break this down into 20-30 minutes of focused attention and high effort.
  • Take a break of at least 10-15 minutes between sessions.
  • Complete one to two independent sessions on therapy days.
  • Complete two to three independent sessions on all other days.
  • Make sure patients understand that it must be effortful but doable. If it’s too easy, they won’t benefit. If it’s too hard, they’ll get frustrated.

Here’s a chart that you can show your patients, which is included in the free download .

Chart showing 60-90 minutes of daily intensive exercise is best to improve language skills.

The numbers along the left side don’t represent any specific data. The idea is that aphasia outcomes are better when people engage in an effortful home exercise program for 60 to 90 minutes just about every day.

Tips for choosing therapy goals

The presenters point out that aphasia is not a learning deficit. PWA can learn, but they may need more intensive training and practice. Here are their recommendations for developing goals:

  • Assist your patient in identifying the goals.
  • Then engage your patient in writing SMART goals.
  • Focus on one to two goals at a time.
  • Long-term goals should take three to six months.
  • Short-term goals should take four to six weeks.
  • “Mini” goals (specific therapy activities) should be achievable in five to 10 days.
  • Goals should be written to be achieved independently or with minimal unskilled support.

Depending on my patient’s impairment level, progress in therapy, and insurance coverage, I may see my PWA anywhere from one to three months. This means that I’m likely going to be able to reach one or two “short-term goals” (they would be written as “long-term goals” in my report). Hopefully I’ll be successful in teaching my patient how to continue with their daily intensive practice so that they can reach their three-to-six-month long-term goals.

If we can teach people to set their own SMART goals and work towards them, then PWA could continue improving their skills indefinitely.

Your plan should include three activity types

The presenters suggest including a combination of three types of activities:

  • Drill exercises.

how to design independent focused practice

Journaling can be drawing or writing. It can be a single sentence about something that happened during the day, an answer to a writing prompt, or as long and as complex as the person would like. The book itself can be used for word retrieval during conversation.

Your patient can also include symptoms, vital signs, and questions for the doctor. The presenters suggest that our patients take their journals with them to doctor’s visits and write a brief summary of the outcome (or have a staff member write a note).

Other functional writing activities count as journaling, such as keeping a homework log, to-do lists, and grocery lists.

Drs. Eaton & Russell's slide about journaling.

Practical tasks

Practical tasks involve any meaningful activity our patients engage in, such as reading the newspaper, responding to mail, arts and crafts, making out a shopping list, talking to family, etc. I think the idea here is to push the boundaries beyond what is easy and comfortable. The idea is to work harder in some fashion in order to do more.

Drill exercises

Use drill exercises to focus on specific speech, language or cognitive skills. Drill work should be time-based, meaning that your patient should work on the same activity until the scheduled practice time is up.

Drill exercises may include:

  • Reading aloud or silently.
  • Flashcard drills.

Reading, writing, and flashcards can be continued for as long as the practice session is. Based on the presentation I heard, it sounds as though the presenters don’t use worksheets because by nature they can’t be repeated until the practice time is up. They don’t want to give stacks of worksheets to their patients.

Join Fontbonne University’s Aphasia Group in Quizlet for free access to flashcard sets

The presenters often use Quizlet for their drill exercises. PWA can access pre-made flashcard sets, or new flashcard sets are added as needed. Dr. Eaton has graciously extended the offer to all of us to join their Aphasia Group in Quizlet to access, copy, and use their flashcard sets.

Frequent testing is important for learning

Incorporate frequent testing into your drill exercises. Testing offers many benefits, including:

  • Enhances learning.
  • Promotes autonomy.
  • Improves awareness.
  • Increases accountability.
  • Provides encouragement.

If you use an app such as Quizlet, testing is built in. Otherwise, you could teach your patient how to test themselves by providing a quiz and an answer key. Or a family member could test your patient.

Developing activities

The activities you choose may be speech, language, or cognition. We know from recent research that PWA also generally have impaired attention or memory. The presenters stated that “when you strengthen one skill, the others get better too. The brain is a network.”

  • Choose personally-relevant materials and tasks.
  • Find Goldilocks tasks: easy enough to be completed on own (or with minimal unskilled support) but hard enough to require real effort.
  • Design open-ended activities instead of completion-based task. Create activities that the patient can do over and over for the scheduled period of time. The presenters don’t use worksheets.

Vary the context

By varying the context, you can improve generalization and transfer of the skills. For example, your patient may choose to focus on pronouns, since using the wrong pronoun may be embarrassing. Your drill work may include these different activities:

  • Producing simple sentences each containing one pronoun.
  • Highlighting pronouns and referents in a text.
  • Matching pictures with pronouns.

I’ll talk more about the practice schedule below, but on most days, a 20-30 minute session would consist of only ONE of these exercises.

30 activity ideas

Drs. Eaton & Russell's slide of homework ideas.

Set daily practice targets

First, select one or two SMART short term goals and break each one down into mini-goals. The mini-goals correspond to specific therapy activities. Then work out which activities will be completed on which days and for how long, following the principles below. Teach your patient how to do this, so they can continue after you discharge.

Then set daily practice goals of two to three practice sessions of 20-30 minutes each (plus skilled intervention sessions).

Then teach your patient to record their activity and progress in a homework log or journal. Be sure to encourage self-reflection and celebration of achievement.

Set an intentional schedule

The presenters admit that the schedule I’m about to share is elaborate, and they said we don’t have to go to these lengths. If we don’t we should still follow the general principles. Take a look at the slide below.

Drs. Eaton and Russell's slide #1 on intentional schedule

  • PWA don’t have a learning impairment, so effortful retrieval is better than errorless learning.
  • PWA should engage in high-effort work to retrieve words.
  • Spaced retrieval refers to a time delay between initial study, review, and the final test. Your patient should practice the target skill with different activities on different days.
  • Massed practice refers to not having a delay between initial study and review. In other words, your patient shouldn’t practice the same activity every day for a week.
  • In other words, in the beginning, your patient could spend 3 entire consecutive days on a single activity, then switch to a new activity on day 4, and then on day 5 would split the time between the two activities.
  • Both activities should target the same goal.

A sample schedule

Now let’s take a closer look at a sample schedule. My apologies that the following slide isn’t very clear. I’ll replace it, if and when their presentation is uploaded to ASHA’s website.

Drs. Eaton and Russell's slide on expanded schedule.

This picture is hard to read, but this calendar assigns nine different activities (Activity A through Activity I). These activities may target one or two short-term goals. Activity A is highlighted in yellow on each day it is practiced.

You can see that Activity A starts off with massed practice. The first three days are solely practicing Activity A.

Then Activity A starts to get distributed. Day 4 is devoted entirely to Activity B. Then each session on Day 5 would be divided between Activities A and B. Day 6 is Activity B. Day 7 is Activity C. Each session on Day 8 is split between Activities A, B, and C.

The schedule continues, introducing new activities as older ones become more distributed. A day of rest is scheduled about every two and a half weeks.

Evidence-based principles of intentional scheduling

Remember, the presenters said that we don’t have to be so elaborate in our training schedules. But we should keep the key points in mind:

  • Focus on one or two specific short-term goals at a time.
  • Create a variety of activities that target each goal.
  • Teach our patients to follow a daily, intense practice and to monitor their practice.
  • Start off focusing on one activity two to three times a day for a few days.
  • Then start a new activity targeting the same goal.
  • Interleave the two activities for a few days.
  • Then start a third activity targeting the same goal (and continue in this way).

I think if I were going to target two specific goals in the same month, I would assign Activities A through E to one goal and Activities F through J to the other.

Typically, we can’t keep patients on our caseload to work through all of the long-term goals that they are likely to have. But we can teach them to direct their own independent practice according to evidence-based principles, and this will benefit them for a lifetime.

Self-ratings and feedback

Encourage your patient to reflect on their own performance to improve self-monitoring skills. If the presenters went into detail on this, I missed it. But I think your patient could use the rating scales to:

  • Predict how they think they will do on an activity.
  • Reflect how they think they did on the activity.
  • Show how they actually did on an activity.

Making a prediction or judging your own performance before learning how you actually did can be very enlightening.

There are many self-rating scales available. I’d have a few handy and try them out with my patient to see which one they liked. Your scale could be picture based (faces), number-based (scale), or word-based (poor, fair, ok, good, excellent).

Providing feedback is important as well. I’d initially provide a lot of feedback on their performance but then hold back and encourage my patients to judge their own performance. My goal is to improve their self-monitoring skills. The presenters also stated that we should provide ongoing feedback regarding their progress towards reaching the goal.

Trying it out with my first patient

I’ve decided that I’m going to use this approach with any PWA who wants to improve their speech, language, or cognitive-communication skills. I’ve been working on this post all week, and it feels both interesting and a little intimidating. I was having trouble imagining where I would find the time. (Spoiler alert: It went very well, and you can read the outcome here !)

And yet today, I met someone who is a year post-stroke. He’s had speech-therapy for the past year with little improvement, but he’s had some medication changes over the past month and he’s becoming more verbal (putting together two and three word phrases).

Today, he responded well to Response Elaboration Training, and as a first pass at developing this intensive program, I used the chart above to educate he and his wife that the target is 60 to 90 minutes of daily effortful practice. I provided a month-view calendar page and drew in 3 small squares for each day. I told them that each box represents 20 to 30 minutes of speech practice. When they complete the practice, they’ll fill in the square.

His wife is going to assist him with talking about his memorabilia using RET strategies for his speech exercise. I believe this would count as a “Practical Task.” I’ll come up with some other activities of interest, including some drill work, and then try to follow a practice schedule like the example one above. He’s not interested at all in using an iPad or computer, so I won’t be able to use those tools.

What I did with this person today was very easy, took no more time than anything else I would have done, and now they will be using an evidence-based therapy approach to target his strongest desire (to be better at conversation) in an intensive fashion. I’m excited to see how it goes!

Give intensive home exercise programs a try, and let us know how it works for you.

Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts

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Free DIRECT download: Intensive home exercise program chart (patient handout) . (Email subscribers, access in the Free Subscription Library .)

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Lisa A Young M.A. CCC-SLP

Lisa earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.

She participated in research studies with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the University of Maryland in the areas of aphasia, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, and fluency disorders.

Lisa has been working as a medical speech-language pathologist since 2008. She has a strong passion for evidence-based assessment and therapy, having earned five ASHA Awards for Professional Participation in Continuing Education.

She launched EatSpeakThink.com in June 2018 to help other clinicians be more successful working in home health, as well as to provide strategies and resources to people living with problems eating, speaking, or thinking.

  • Lisa A Young M.A. CCC-SLP https://eatspeakthink.com/author/admin/ Quick guide to self-management training in Parkinson's
  • Lisa A Young M.A. CCC-SLP https://eatspeakthink.com/author/admin/ Soft skills for SLPs: Taking your practice to new heights
  • Lisa A Young M.A. CCC-SLP https://eatspeakthink.com/author/admin/ Best gear for home health therapists and nurses
  • Lisa A Young M.A. CCC-SLP https://eatspeakthink.com/author/admin/ Learn how to do AbSANT therapy for aphasia

' src=

HI Lisa, This website is amazing! I work at Texas Health Fort Worth as the SLP coordinator for inpatient and outpatient services. I tried to find the aphasia outcome scale used by the aphasia clinic at the former Rehab Institute of Chicago but have never received access to it. We have been asked to ‘show’ progress every 10th visit for all disorders including aphasia. We are close to getting NOMS activated in our electronic health record but even it is hard to show progress with that scale every 10th visit. We have the FCS, ASHA FACS, Ceti (which is more for the caregiver). What do you all use? Thank you !! Beth

' src=

Thanks so much, Beth! Working in home health, I’m on a 30-day schedule. I use the WAB-R, BDAE-3, and the BNT-2. I also recently downloaded the Quick Aphasia Battery which is free ( http://aphasialab.org/qab ) and the Aphasia Impact Questionnaire (AIQ-21) which asks for a donation ( https://www.aiq-21.net/ ). Showing progress every 10 days would be tough. If the person is experiencing improvement within 10 days, then the AIQ-21 would possibly reflect that. Actually, I think that if the person is making noticeable progress in verbal expression in a 10-day period then discourse measures would show progress. There are objective discourse measures that you can calculate from a language sample, although I’m not aware of a “test” per se.

' src=

Just wondering if you know of the evidence for this program with patients with progressive conditions (e.g. PPA, vascular dementia, GBM)?

Hi Vanessa,

Great question! If Professors Eaton and Russell have applied this program to people with progressive conditions, I’m not aware of it. They would probably be the best people to ask. It should be relatively easy to find their email addresses with a search. They are at Fontbonne University near St. Louis, Missouri. (I don’t want to share their email addresses here.)

Thank you for the reply! I will definitely reach out.

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Heather's Speech Therapy

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I created these free speech and language worksheets so you can easily download and print them out to use as part of your speech therapy program.  Just scroll down the page to view the worksheets by topic.  You will find free speech therapy worksheets for articulation, vocabulary , grammar, holiday articulation and language games…and lots of other miscellaneous speech therapy creations that I love!  If you would like more information on what articulation therapy is you might like to read a post I have written called  Teaching Speech Sounds: The Process of Traditional Articulation Therapy

Parents:  If you are a mommy or a daddy (or grandma or grandpa) who wants to work with your child at home, you can use these speech therapy activity pages for extra practice.  Just choose the sound position to work on (initial, medial, or final) and click on the corresponding link to view and print the worksheets.  To help make practice more fun, you can print out two of the same page so you have pairs, cut them out, and use them to play a game of memory or go fish. You can also use them as flashcards.  You will find free speech therapy worksheets by sound and at a variety of levels; word level, phrase level and sentence levels!

Articulation Worksheets

Speech Sounds in Syllable Wheel

aphasia speech therapy homework

/th/ Sound Voiceless

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/th/ Sound Voiced

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Grammar Worksheets

Regular past tense.

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Third Person Singular

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Vocabulary Worksheets – Holiday and Seasonal Themed 

Fall & autumn memory game, christmas vocabulary 1, christmas vocabulary 2, summer vocabulary, summer vocabulary companion, grammar bingo games – holiday and seasonal themed, grammar bingo games.

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Vocabulary bingo - winter, concepts bingo - christmas, conceptual vocabulary bingo - back-to-school, conceptual vocabulary bingo - fall, conceptual vocabulary bingo - spring & easter, lemonade stand bingo - summer, 4th of july vocabulary bingo - summer.

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UMAP and NAA host webinar on Intensive, Comprehensive Aphasia Programs

February 23, 2024 General , News , UMAP

In June 2023, the University of Michigan Aphasia Program (UMAP) and the National Aphasia Association (NAA) partnered together to host a webinar. 

This webinar, part of the NAA’s monthly series called ‘Ask the Expert’, focused on Intensive, Comprehensive Aphasia Programs (ICAPs). 

The University of Michigan Aphasia Program is one of a few ICAPs in the United States. To be considered an ICAP, programs must meet specific requirements. 

These include:

  • A Minimum of 15 hours of therapy a week for at least 2 weeks
  • A Variety of Therapy Approaches
  • Education + Carepartner Support
  • A focus on Life Participation + Quality of Life

This information is also available to download and share as a printable flyer (PDF) .

Our panelists included Carol C. Persad, Ph.D., ABPP, Jennifer Corey, M.S., CCC-SLP, Bruce Farrell, M.A., and Elise Jones, M.A., CCC-SLP.

  • Carol Persad is the Director of the University Center for Language and Literacy (UCLL), which houses the University of Michigan Aphasia Program (UMAP). 
  • Jennifer Corey is the Clinic Manager of UCLL and a Senior Speech-Language Pathologist
  • Elise Jones is a Senior Speech-Language Pathologist at UMAP
  • Bruce Farrell is a former client of the University of Michigan Aphasia Program and shared his aphasia story in the fall of 2023.

Our panelists discussed what goes into an ICAP and why intensive therapy works, bringing in both the clinical and client perspectives. 

You can watch the full program on the NAA’s YouTube channel.  Watch Full Presentation .

About the U-M Aphasia Program and UCLL

The U-M Aphasia Program (UMAP) provides intensive, comprehensive speech-language therapy for people with aphasia, caused by a stroke, brain injury, illness, or other neurological disorder. UMAP is part of the University Center for Language and Literacy (UCLL), which is committed to helping people of all ages find meaningful ways to communicate. UCLL is part of the Mary A. Rackham Institute (MARI) at the University of Michigan.

MARI Mental Health services officially has a new address: 210 S. Fifth Ave. in Ann Arbor. If you have an in-person appointment for one of our mental health services, please be sure to review the new location information.

See: MARI Moving News for more information and details

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iTalkBetter app significantly improves speech in stroke patients

22 February 2024

A UCL-developed app that provides speech therapy for people with the language disorder aphasia has been found to significantly improve their ability to talk.

elderly single man spend free time using modern smartphone at home

iTalkBetter, developed by the Neurotherapeutics Group at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, provides users the digital platform to practice over 200 commonly used words, in their own time and without any limits on the amount of therapy they receive.

While employing games to maintain engagement, the app’s integrated speech recogniser analyses speech in real time to give the user feedback on whether they have named the displayed item correctly.

A new study, published in eClinicalMedicine and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) , found that when used over a six-week period for around 90 minutes per day, iTalkBetter significantly improved patients’ ability to name items by 13% for the 200 commonly used words. Importantly, spontaneous speech was also found to improve.

Aphasia occurs when a person suffers brain damage, usually to the organ’s left side, leading to difficulties with speech or language. The most common causes are stroke, severe head injury and brain tumours.

Symptoms can vary widely from person to person. However, most people with aphasia have some trouble with their speaking, and may also experience issues with writing, reading and listening.

Currently, the NHS provides around 12 hours of speech and language therapy with further face-to-face therapy available via some charities or privately.

Corresponding author, Professor Alex Leff, an NIHR Research Professor  (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), said: “Most health care systems massively under dose people with aphasia in terms of the hours of speech language therapy that they are provided with. App delivered therapy is one solution to this problem.

“This is the first randomised controlled trial of an app designed to improve speaking that transfers to a naturalistic speaking task and show an effect on connected speech.”

The researchers tested the app in a phase II randomised clinical trial on 27 people with aphasia as a result of a stroke, between September 2020 and March 2022.

Researchers also used structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to see what happened in the brains of participants when using the app.

Structurally, they found that brain regions related to language perception, production and control increased in volume after practice with iTalkBetter.

Professor Leff added: “This is the first task-based fMRI study in people with aphasia to identify dose-related changes in brain function. The more people with aphasia practiced, the more they were able to activate key auditory processing areas in the undamaged hemisphere.”

iTalkBetter will soon be rolled out as an app available to all suitable patients to use.

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) with support from Wellcome,  in addition to backing from the UCL Centre for Digital Innovation through its Impact Accelerator programme, aimed at advancing the technical capabilities and scalability of HealthTech and EdTech ventures.

  • Research in  eClinicalMedicine
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What to know about aphasia after Wendy Williams' primary progressive aphasia, frontotemporal dementia diagnosis

VIDEO: Wendy Williams' niece shares why Williams chose to tell her story in new doc

Talk show host and media personality Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, her care team announced Thursday.

MORE: Wendy Williams diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, frontotemporal dementia

"The decision to share this news was difficult and made after careful consideration, not only to advocate for understanding and compassion for Wendy, but to raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia and support the thousands of others facing similar circumstances," the team stated in a press release.

aphasia speech therapy homework

Williams, 59, whose upcoming Lifetime documentary "Where Is Wendy Williams?" premieres Feb. 24, has been open about her health issues in the past, revealing her experience with Graves' disease, a thyroid condition.

Dementia is an umbrella term that describes "the impaired ability to remember, think or make decisions that interferes with doing everyday activities," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Frontotemporal dementia is caused by degeneration of the frontal and/or temporal lobes of the brain, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health. It is the most common form of dementia for people under the age of 60, and there is currently no known cure.

According to the agency, symptoms of frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, can vary from one person to another. Symptoms may include "changes in personality, behavior, and judgment"; primary progressive aphasia, which involves "changes in the ability to communicate" as well as "problems with memory, reasoning, and judgment"; and movement disorders or issues with balance or walking.

"FTD is progressive, meaning symptoms get worse over time," the agency states. "In the early stages, people may have just one type of symptom. As the disease progresses, other symptoms will appear as more parts of the brain are affected. It is difficult to predict how long someone with FTD will live."

Here are five things to know about aphasia.

Aphasia affects language

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders , another sub-agency within the National Institutes of Health, aphasia results from damage to the parts of the brain that process language, typically the left side of the brain.

The disorder can make it harder to speak, write, read and comprehend.

Aphasia can be caused by brain damage

In most cases, aphasia comes on suddenly, like after a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, according to the NIH.

If a person has a brain tumor or a progressive neurological disease, aphasia may develop more gradually.

In certain conditions, like frontotemporal dementia, the slow decline of brain cells can lead to progressive syndromes, like aphasias.

aphasia speech therapy homework

It does not affect a person's intellect

While people with aphasia have difficulty communicating, the disorder itself does not affect their intelligence, according to the National Aphasia Association .

"For people with aphasia it is the ability to access ideas and thoughts through language -- not the ideas and thoughts themselves -- that is disrupted," according to the NAA.

MORE: Wendy Williams' niece shares glimpse into the life of her aunt in new doc

There are different types of aphasia.

There are different types of aphasia depending on which area of the brain sustained damage.

In Broca's aphasia, which is caused by damage to the frontal lobe of the brain, a person may be unable to produce words or full sentences despite being able to completely understand speech, according to the NIH.

In Wernicke's aphasia, which is caused by damage to the temporal lobe of the brain, a person may speak in long, often made-up sentences, and may have difficulty understanding speech, the agency states.

According to the NIH, another type, global aphasia, can cause extensive damage across the language portions of the brain, leaving a person potentially unable to both speak and understand.

With conduction aphasia, a person may have difficulty repeating words, even though they understand them, while with anomic aphasia, a person may have difficulty naming objects, even though they know what the object is.

In primary progressive aphagia, which is a gradual loss of overall language ability, a person may slowly lose the ability to speak over time, advancing to severe loss over time.

Speech-language therapy is the go-to treatment

Some people with aphasia can see improvements even without treatment as their brain recovers, according to the NIH.

For others, speech-language therapy is required to help regain the ability to communicate.

How much of their language abilities a person can recover depends on the cause of the brain injury, the extent of the injury and where in the brain the damage occurred and the person's age and health, according to the NIH.

In addition to speech-language therapy, social activities like book clubs and support groups can also be helpful for treatment, as well as family involvement, according to the NIH.

ABC News' Carson Blackwelder and Katie Kindelan, along with Dr. Constantine E. Kanakis and Dr. Eli Cahan, contributed to this article.

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What is aphasia? What to know after Wendy Williams's diagnosis.

  • Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Being able to communicate, from finding the right words to just being able to read and write, is something that most people take for granted. However, for those who suffer from aphasia — a cognitive disorder that affects a person’s ability to speak and understand others — communicating can be a challenging task.

The health condition is in the news after representatives for talk show host Wendy Williams issued a press statement on Thursday revealing that she has been diagnosed with both primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) . And in 2022, actor Bruce Willis's family announced that aphasia had affected his "cognitive abilities," prompting him to step away from Hollywood. The movie star was subsequently diagnosed with FTD , a form of dementia that can affect a person's behavior, physical ability and communication; aphasia can be a symptom.

So what is aphasia?

Aphasia is “a language disorder that results from damage to the left hemisphere of the brain,” Jennifer Brello , a clinical associate professor at the Ohio State University and director of the OSU Aphasia Initiative, tells Yahoo Life. “It can cause difficulty using words and sentences, understanding language, reading and writing.”

The disorder can range from mild to severe. According to the National Aphasia Association (NAA): “It may affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects, or the ability to put words together into sentences, or the ability to read. More commonly, however, multiple aspects of communication are impaired, while some channels remain accessible for a limited exchange of information.”

There are also different types of aphasia. To help determine which type a patient has, there are three factors to look out for, according to the Cleveland Clinic : speech fluency (whether a person can speak easily or with a lot of effort), language comprehension (whether the person has a good or poor grasp of written or spoken words) and the ability to repeat words and phrases.

About 2 million people in the U.S. currently have aphasia, according to the NAA . While the disorder can happen at any age, it's more common in people in middle age and older.

Not surprisingly, aphasia can have “a significant impact on quality of life,” says Brello. “It can limit the ability to socialize with family, friends, work and participate in life activities. Additionally, persons living with aphasia are more likely to experience social isolation, which can lead to depression and reduced life satisfaction.”

What causes it?

Aphasia is typically caused by an acquired brain injury, such as a stroke, head trauma, tumor or neurodegenerative disease. The injury can damage “regions of the brain involved in language processing,” which brings on the condition, Dr. Jagan Pillai of Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Brain Health tells Yahoo Life.

Brello notes that language difficulty resulting from degenerative brain disease is called primary progressive aphasia, “which is a type of dementia,” she says.

With aphasia, there are some telltale signs to look out for, which include “difficulty speaking fluently, difficulty understanding spoken language or difficulty with writing or comprehending reading,” says Pillai.

Aphasia from an acquired brain injury is typically diagnosed by a speech-language pathologist or physician, points out Brello. “Anyone who is experiencing changes in their ability to use language without an acute brain injury should talk with their primary care provider,” she says.

How is aphasia treated?

There is no cure for aphasia. But there are treatment options depending on the cause, notes Pillai. For example, if the condition is caused by a tumor, treatment would likely include removal of the tumor, “whereas for other causes of aphasia, including strokes or neurodegenerative diseases, speech and language therapy exercises [with a speech-language pathologist] can help overcome some difficulties,” he says.

Because aphasia can be overwhelming and isolating, some programs also offer supportive counseling, notes Brello, “to help our group participants with emotional wellness and case management needs.”

This article was originally published on March 30, 2022 and has been updated.

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Wendy Williams’ aphasia diagnosis puts a spotlight on the neurological condition

T he announcement that former talk show host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with aphasia has put the neurological condition — the same one actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with in 2022 — back in the spotlight.

Aphasia affects a person's ability to speak, read, write and understand others. The condition usually comes on suddenly from a brain injury or stroke, but in some cases it can develop over time as a result of a neurodegenerative disease. When that happens, the syndrome is known as primary progressive aphasia, or PPA.

Williams' team said Thursday that her PPA diagnosis came last year, after a series of medical tests. Williams, 59, was also diagnosed with dementia.

"Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy’s ability to process information and many have speculated about Wendy’s condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions," her team said in a news release.

Williams' team said that her conditions "have already presented significant hurdles," but that she is "receiving the care she requires to make sure she is protected and that her needs are addressed."

Symptoms of aphasia

Aphasia affects an estimated 2 million people in the U.S., and nearly 180,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, according to the National Aphasia Association .

The symptoms — and their severity — vary based on which type of aphasia a person has. Some severely affect a patient's speech and ability to read and write. Other types leave patients able to understand speech well and read adequately, but cause them to have difficulty finding words, according to the association.

In people with primary progressive aphasia, Williams' diagnosis, language skills become increasingly impaired over time. Some of the first symptoms are issues with speech and language; memory loss generally develops later.

Eventually, almost all people with PPA stop speaking and lose the ability to understand written or spoken language.

Patients with global aphasia, the most severe type, can only produce a few recognizable words, and they understand little spoken language, according to the association. Someone with this type of aphasia cannot read or write.

What causes aphasia?

Aphasia is most often caused by damage to areas of the brain that play a role in speech and language.

Twenty-five to 40% of stroke survivors develop it, according to the National Aphasia Association. It also can develop from a head injury or brain tumor.

Primary progressive aphasia, however, is caused by neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's — it's the result of the degradation of brain tissue. PPA can sometimes progress to a more generalized dementia, according to the Mayo Clinic .

How is aphasia treated?

Diagnosing aphasia usually involves an MRI or CT scan, as well as an assessment by a speech-language pathologist.

There is no cure for aphasia. However, depending on the type and severity, speech and language therapy can help some patients if those interventions begin soon after the condition's onset.

Research into the use of certain medications or brain stimulation to treat aphasia is ongoing, but no large-scale, long-term studies have been completed.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Wendy Williams’ aphasia diagnosis puts a spotlight on the neurological condition

IMAGES

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  2. A Look Inside the Aphasia Therapy Workbook

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  2. Video 7: Speech Therapy can improve Aphasia, Apraxia, and Articulation Disorders

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COMMENTS

  1. 55 Aphasia Treatment Activities

    Treatment Approaches Severe: Receptive Aphasia Treatment Activities Moderate: Receptive Aphasia Treatment Activities Mild: Receptive Aphasia Treatment Activities Handouts & Worksheets 1. Aphasia Support Group Help patients connect to an aphasia support group.

  2. PDF A Workbook for Aphasia

    Those assisting someone with aphasia or a cognition problem may find its pages of use, and some activities might be helpful for those patients in the early stages of a progressive cognitive decline.

  3. How Do You Treat Expressive Aphasia? 23 Free Aphasia Activities

    In this post, you'll find 23 ready-to-use activities to treat expressive aphasia, including language expression and writing impairments. Free free to copy and print them. Or bookmark this post to use during treatment. For hundreds of evidence-based handouts and worksheets, check out our best-selling Adult Speech Therapy Starter Pack!

  4. Aphasia Treatment Approaches and Interventions: Free PDFs

    Fluency Treatment Approaches 1. Script Training 2. Sentence Production Program for Aphasia (SPPA) 3. Melodic Intonation Therapy Syntax Production 1. Response Elaboration Training (RET) 2. Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF) 3. Sentence Production Program for Aphasia (SPPA) Auditory Comprehension Treatment Approaches 1.

  5. Homework

    Listen & Write - 1 Download Now Auditory comprehension and writing activity Aphasia Materials Show off your hard work! Send a picture to [email protected] for a chance to be featured on our website Come back soon 👋 We are always adding more activities Free language activities for people with aphasia.

  6. Speech Therapy Exercises at Home: 9 Ways to Make it Work

    Just 20 minutes a day for 4 weeks — that's all it took for every single participant with aphasia to show improvement using our Language Therapy 4-in-1 app at home in a research study at Cambridge . Make a Plan

  7. Speech Therapy Activities for Aphasia in Adults

    1. Word games. One of the speech therapy activities for aphasia is word games. Word games can help improve vocabulary and word-finding skills! Word games work best if the game is played with a focus on a specific theme (e.g., animals, food, transportation, etc.). They can also be a fun way to practice communication!

  8. Aphasia Therapy Guide

    A person with aphasia initially wants to speak better and make sense of language spoken by others. Therefore, speech-language pathologists attempt to repair what is broken. Therapies focus an individual's attention on tasks that allow him or her to comprehend and speak as successfully as possible.

  9. Home Exercise Program Using Apps for Adult Speech Therapy Homework

    Aphasia-Friendly Daily Practice Notes {includes tools for setting goals, self-awareness, & intensity} 9 Tips for Successful Speech Therapy Homework for Adults In addition to receiving your free download, you will also be added to our mailing list. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please make sure you read our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

  10. Aphasia Homework Teaching Resources

    Results for aphasia homework 76results Sort by: Relevance View: List WH Question Packet - TBI, Autism, Aphasia by Sassy Speech Lady 5.0 (8) $2.50 PDF WH Question Packet for TBI, Aphasia, ELL patients.

  11. Aphasia

    Causes Roles and Responsibilities Assessment Treatment Resources References About This Content Policies Aphasia is an acquired neurogenic language disorder resulting from brain injury. Aphasia may affect receptive and expressive language.

  12. Take Aphasia Action From Home: Activities 6

    Voila! Speech therapy on wheels. Of course, you don't need to be in the car to find things to read on a screen. Turn on the news and turn off the sound so you can read the chyron aloud. Or play iTunes roulette, putting your music on shuffle and reading off the title of the song and artist from your mobile device.

  13. Create Your Own Intensive Speech Program at Home

    When we explored this topic during our last online Aphasia Cafe chat, only 47% stated they had done some form of intensive therapy. But 40% did not partake in intensive therapy, and an additional 13% didn't know about intensive therapy programs. High cost, high time commitment, or distance are three obstacles for daily speech therapy programs.

  14. Take Aphasia Action From Home: Activities 1

    MONDAY: Super Namer. Grab a water bottle (you'll need it because you're about to do a lot of talking), lace up your sneakers, and walk outside. Either go to a park or set a timer for twenty minutes and start walking. Name everything you see—from trees and birds to stop signs and houses. Name the colors you see or count the number of cars ...

  15. Phonological Treatment for Writing: A 'How To' Guide

    Megan S. Sutton, MS, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and co-founder of Tactus Therapy. She is an international speaker, writer, and educator on the use of technology in adult medical speech therapy. Megan believes that technology plays a critical role in improving aphasia outcomes and humanizing clinical services.

  16. Improve aphasia outcomes by creating intensive home exercise programs

    30 activity ideas. Set daily practice targets. Set an intentional schedule. A sample schedule. Evidence-based principles of intentional scheduling. Self-ratings and feedback. Trying it out with my first patient. Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts. Why should we assign intense home exercise programs?

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    Free Worksheets I created these free speech and language worksheets so you can easily download and print them out to use as part of your speech therapy program. Just scroll down the page to view the worksheets by topic.

  18. Oral Reading for Language in Aphasia (ORLA)

    Oral Reading for Language in Aphasia (ORLA) is a reading treatment for people with aphasia. It focuses on reading full sentences rather than single words. The goal of using sentences instead of single words is to improve the reader's intonation and prosody. Prosody is the rhythm of speech - the natural ups and downs that people without ...

  19. New aphasia therapy app helps stroke victims recover speech

    Many senior living and care providers have taken steps to ensure stroke patients have access to speech therapy tools. Increasingly, seniors also have access to telehealth and virtual speech therapy options. Some seniors with aphasia, and their caregivers, can even improve their speech via singing rehab options, McKnight's reported last year.

  20. UMAP and NAA host webinar on Intensive, Comprehensive Aphasia Programs

    Elise Jones is a Senior Speech-Language Pathologist at UMAP; Bruce Farrell is a former client of the University of Michigan Aphasia Program and shared his aphasia story in the fall of 2023. Our panelists discussed what goes into an ICAP and why intensive therapy works, bringing in both the clinical and client perspectives.

  21. Revolutionizing Aphasia Recovery: The iTalkBetter App's Breakthrough in

    Recognizing the gap in care left by traditional NHS speech therapy's limited hours, the app offers a viable solution for extended speech therapy access. This advancement is especially crucial considering aphasia's diverse causes, including strokes, severe head injuries, and brain tumors, which can leave many grappling for support.

  22. iTalkBetter app significantly improves speech in stroke patients

    Symptoms can vary widely from person to person. However, most people with aphasia have some trouble with their speaking, and may also experience issues with writing, reading and listening. Currently, the NHS provides around 12 hours of speech and language therapy with further face-to-face therapy available via some charities or privately.

  23. PDF Digital therapy app significantly improves speech in stroke patients

    Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A UCL-developed app that provides speech therapy for people with the language disorder aphasia has been found to significantly improve their

  24. What to know about aphasia after Wendy Williams' primary progressive

    There are different types of aphasia. There are different types of aphasia depending on which area of the brain sustained damage. In Broca's aphasia, which is caused by damage to the frontal lobe of the brain, a person may be unable to produce words or full sentences despite being able to completely understand speech, according to the NIH.

  25. Digital therapy app significantly improves speech in stroke patients

    A UCL-developed app that provides speech therapy for people with the language disorder aphasia has been found to significantly improve their ability to talk.. iTalkBetter, developed by the ...

  26. What is aphasia? Experts explain

    Aphasia is "a language disorder that results from damage to the left hemisphere of the brain," Jennifer Brello, a clinical associate professor at the Ohio State University and director of the ...

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  29. Wendy Williams' aphasia diagnosis puts a spotlight on the neurological

    Aphasia is most often caused by damage to areas of the brain that play a role in speech and language. Twenty-five to 40% of stroke survivors develop it, according to the National Aphasia Association.