Speech exercises to do at home

Six things you can actually do this afternoon, with nothing but a table and each other.

7 min read Updated August 19, 2026

Most lists of home speech exercises have the same problem: they tell you the activity and not the point of it. So you run it, something goes wrong, and you have no idea whether to make it easier, make it harder, or stop.

Here are six, each with what it's for and what to do when it isn't working. They're the ones we actually used, which is also why they're the ones the app is built from.

One thing first, and it applies to all of them: a speech-language pathologist who has assessed the person can tell you which of these fit and which are a waste of an afternoon. If you have one, show them this page. What follows is a starting point for families who don't have anyone to ask today.

1. Naming things around you

What it is. Point at something and ask what it is. The kettle, the dog, a photo on the wall.

What it's for. Word retrieval — the single most common difficulty after a stroke affecting language, and the one that most directly limits conversation.

Make it easier: offer a choice of two. Use objects from a single category so the search space is small. Pick things that matter to them — their tools, their kitchen — because personally meaningful words are usually easier to reach than a stock photo of a zebra.

Make it harder: move from objects in the room to objects from memory. Ask for the word without the object in sight.

Working when: words are arriving faster, even if not always right. Speed matters as much as accuracy here.

2. Category naming, against a timer

What it is. "Name as many animals as you can in sixty seconds." Then foods, then things in a kitchen, then jobs.

What it's for. Getting from one word to the next word — the mechanism conversation runs on. It also gives you the closest thing to a measurable number you'll get at home, which is oddly motivating.

Make it easier: drop the timer entirely. Give a starter word. Use a narrower category ("things in this kitchen" rather than "things in a kitchen").

Make it harder: letter categories instead of meaning categories — "words beginning with S" is a genuinely different and harder task.

Working when: the count rises over weeks, or the same count comes with less visible effort.

Count anything reasonable. If they say "wolf" and you were thinking of pets, that's a hit. Arguing about the boundary is the fastest way to end a session.

3. Fixing a wrong word in a sentence

What it is. You say a sentence with one word wrong — "I brushed my teeth with a fork" — and they say the word that fixes it.

What it's for. It sits between naming single words and open conversation. The sentence supplies context, so the word is easier to reach than from cold, which makes it a useful bridge when single-word naming is solid but talking still isn't.

Make it easier: make the error more obvious. Use shorter sentences.

Make it harder: put the error later in the sentence, or make it a subtler one — a plausible wrong word rather than an absurd one.

Working when: they catch the error before you've finished the sentence.

There's a playable version of exactly this at sentence exercises if you'd rather not make up sentences on the spot.

4. Describing something without naming it

What it is. They describe an object well enough that you can guess it. What it's for, where you'd find it, what it looks like.

What it's for. This is the one that transfers most directly to real life. Nobody in conversation gets to stop when a word won't come — they have to go around it. This practices going around it deliberately, so it becomes a skill rather than a failure.

Make it easier: give them the object to hold. Ask leading questions.

Make it harder: have them describe it from memory, or ban the most obvious clue.

Working when: they start doing it unprompted in ordinary conversation. That's the whole goal.

5. Listening for the difference between two similar words

What it is. You say one of two similar words — cat or hat, pin or bin — and they point at or repeat the one they heard.

What it's for. Hearing the difference between similar sounds. If this is hard, a lot of other things are hard downstream, including following conversation in a noisy room.

Make it easier: exaggerate the difference. Face them so they can see your mouth. Turn everything else off.

Make it harder: say the word without them seeing your face. Use pairs that differ in the middle of the word rather than at the start.

Working when: accuracy holds up without watching your mouth.

6. Talking about a photograph

What it is. Put a photo on the table — a real one, from their life — and talk about it. Who's in it, where it was, what happened that day.

What it's for. Connected speech, rather than single words. It's also the one that most reliably produces actual conversation instead of an exercise, which matters more than it sounds like it should.

Make it easier: ask specific questions. "Who's this?" before "Tell me about this day."

Make it harder: ask them to tell the story from the beginning without questions.

Working when: the exercise stops and the conversation keeps going.

How to run a session

Pick two or three, not six. Fifteen minutes at the outside, and less if the day is going badly — there's more on why in how long should home speech practice be.

Watch for the signs you've gone past the point of usefulness: shorter answers, longer pauses, and above all something they did easily ten minutes ago suddenly not working. When that happens the session is over.

End on something that worked. Go back to whichever exercise was going well, do one more, stop there. The last thing that happens is what decides whether there's a next session.

What counts as progress

Not accuracy. Or not only accuracy.

Faster arrival at the same words counts. Less visible effort counts. Going around a missing word instead of stopping counts, and counts a lot. Starting a conversation unprompted counts more than any exercise score.

Progress after a stroke is slow enough and uneven enough that you generally can't see it week to week. If you want to see it, write down one number — the sixty-second category count — once a week and look at it in three months. Do not look at it daily.

If you'd rather not run it yourself

Everything above exists as a free playable session at free aphasia games — no account, about two minutes each, with the cues built in so you don't have to remember the order. The printable pack is the paper version, with scripts telling a practice partner what to say.

Neither is treatment, and neither replaces a speech therapist. They're for the afternoons in between, which is where nearly all the afternoons are.

Common questions

What speech exercises can I do at home after a stroke?

Naming objects around the room, timed category naming, repairing a sentence with one wrong word, describing something without naming it, listening for the difference between two similar words, and talking about a personal photograph. Each targets a different part of language, and a speech-language pathologist can tell you which fit the person you are practicing with.

How many exercises should we do in one session?

Two or three, not six, and fifteen minutes at the outside. The signal to stop is something they did easily ten minutes earlier suddenly not working — at that point the session is over, and the useful move is to go back to something that was going well and finish there.

What if they give a different answer than the one I expected?

Count it if it is reasonable. Arguing about the boundary of a category is the fastest way to end a session, and a creative answer is still successful word finding. The goal is the idea getting across, not matching the word in your head.

How do I know if home practice is working?

Look for faster arrival at the same words, less visible effort, and — most meaningfully — going around a missing word instead of stopping. Progress is usually too slow and uneven to see week to week, so write down one number weekly and look at it in three months rather than daily.