What’s that Word?

We’ve all experienced that feeling of having a word on the tip of our tongue, but not being able to bring it to mind. However, after a stroke or head injury, some people can have more frequent problems with word-finding.

In this exercise, we take a word-finding exercise that’s often used by speech and language therapists, and give it a creative twist. We’ll show you a picture a common object and ask you to name it – and then to find some other words a associated with that object.

Once you’ve done that, your challenge is to create a short poem using all the related words to describe the obect, without mentioning it by name.

We’ve given you an example to show you how the exercise works. You can then use the arrows to bring up more pictures so you can try the exercise itself.

Try the word-finding challenge:

Look at the picture below, and then find a word for each of the boxes:

Object
(It is a …)

Use
(You use it for…)

Action
(What does it do?)

Properties
(Describe it…)

Location
(You find it…)

Associaton
(It reminds me of…)

Word-finding – an example:

If your object is:

Chair

Your associated words might be:

– Sitting
– Supports my weight
– Four legs and seat
– In my home
– Making dens as a child

Now get creative…

Can you use your associated words as inspiration to write a short poem about your object, without using its name?

When I am home
It takes the weight off my feet
Four legs and a seat

When I was a child
It stood in my game for
Four walls and a ceiling

Now when I am sitting
It’s still a place of
Imagination

Now it’s your turn. Use the other pictures to generate more words, and then use these as a starting point for poetry.