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What this is
Words at Home is a practice tool for someone who knows what a thing is but cannot always get the word out. One person practises; the people around them help. It runs in a web browser, so there is nothing to install.
It is not therapy and not a medical device. There is no trial of this app. Nothing here slows the disease, and nobody can promise a given person a given result. What it does is make daily practice on personally chosen words easy enough to actually happen, which is the part families usually lose. Your speech-language pathologist should choose the word list and the order of the cues.
Setting it up
1. Take three photos. Their mug, their chair, the person they see most days. Photograph the actual object, not a picture from the internet. A photo of their own kettle is a better cue than any stock image, because it carries everything they already know about that kettle.
2. Type what each one is called. Use the word the household actually says. If everyone calls it "Nan", the word is Nan, not "grandmother".
3. Try a session. Three cards takes about two minutes. Nothing is saved anywhere yet.
4. Make an account to keep it. Signing in with Google, Microsoft or an email link turns what you just made into a household: your photos, your words, your practice history. Nothing is shared between households.
How a session runs
A card shows one photo and nothing else. The person practising tries to say the word, with no timer and nothing counting down.
If the word comes, tap Got it and the next card appears. If it does not, tap Help, and help arrives one step at a time, in a fixed order:
- The first sound of the word.
- The first letter, on screen.
- The written word, with a dot under each syllable.
- The word spoken aloud, to say straight after.
- The word said together, at the same time.
Every card ends with them saying the word. That is deliberate: the card never finishes on a failed search. If nothing is coming today, tap Help until the word is on screen and say it together. That still counts as practice.
The Stop button is always there and ends the session immediately, with no summary and no score shown to the person practising. It sits apart from the other two buttons so a miss between Help and Got it cannot end the session by accident.
Being a coach, not a tester
This is the part that changes how practice feels, and it is worth saying plainly: you are not checking whether they know the word. You already know they know it. You are helping them get it out.
- Do not say "you know this one". It adds pressure to the exact moment pressure is the problem.
- Do not wait in silence for a word that is not coming. Tap Help.
- Do not correct a close attempt. If it is nearly right, it is right.
- Stop before it gets frustrating, not after. A short good session beats a long hard one.
There is a longer guide on this: coaching without testing.
How often
About 15 minutes a day. That is the dose the best-documented home programme in progressive aphasia actually used, and doubling clinic time on top of it changed nothing in that study. Short and daily beats long and occasional. See how much daily practice actually works for the numbers.
After the first week
- Add more words. Fifteen to thirty is the range the research settles on. Add things they reach for daily rather than things that seem educational.
- Record your own voice. In the word editor you can record the word, its first sound, and a sentence. A familiar voice is a better model than a synthetic one, and the app falls back to a computer voice only where no recording exists.
- Invite the rest of the family. Anyone you invite can add words, record their voice, or run a session. Everyone works in the same household.
- Set up the tablet, if there is one. If the person practising has their own tablet, pair it once from the Tablet page and they never sign in again. This is optional; one device on the sofa works perfectly well.
Things people ask early
The words repeat. That is the design. Words come back on a lengthening schedule: a word retrieved easily returns later, a word that needed the full cascade returns tomorrow. Holding a set takes far less work than learning it did.
Some words never appear. Sessions draw from words at or under a syllable limit, which starts low on purpose. Raise it in Settings once short words are solid.
They got it wrong and nothing happened. Correct. There is no red, no buzzer, and no score anywhere on their screen. A wrong tap on a comprehension card gently shows the right answer and moves on.