💬 How One Man with Aphasia Used ChatGPT to Tell His Story

Imagine wanting to write your life story—but every time you try, the words won’t come out right. That’s what life was like for a 75-year-old man living with aphasia, a language disorder that makes writing and speaking challenging. After a stroke eight years ago, he struggled with word-finding, grammar, and organizing his thoughts on paper. But he had a goal: to write his autobiography.

That’s where ChatGPT came in.

As part of a 10-session program at a university clinic, he started working with a speech-language pathologist (SLP) and ChatGPT to see if AI could help. Each session followed a simple pattern. First, he wrote on his own—short paragraphs, sentences, even just ideas. Then, he used ChatGPT with help from the SLP. They followed a visual prompt guide (kind of like a flowchart) to tell ChatGPT exactly what he needed: reword this, expand that, fix the grammar, etc. Over time, he got better at using these prompts himself.

The difference was amazing. When he used ChatGPT, he wrote more, with fewer errors, and felt more confident. He still had full control over the content—it was his voice and his memories—but ChatGPT helped polish it up. By the end of the program, he had written enough to print a small autobiography to share with his family. And a year later? He was still using ChatGPT for creative writing like song lyrics and stories.

This case shows that AI tools like ChatGPT, when used with support and structure, can be more than just tech—they can be empowering, especially for people working through language challenges. 💡

Read the full article: Harnessing AI for aphasia: a case report on ChatGPT's role in supporting written expression