AI, Aphasia & AI
How AI Helped Me Find My Words, My Ideas, and My Voice
AI and aphasia have changed the way I think, read, and write. This is my story of learning to write again with the help of AI Teacher.
Getting to Know My New Brain
On October 12, 2026, I gave a presentation to the Mid-Atlantic Aphasia Conference (MAAC) support group.
The subject was AI, Aphasia & Writing Again.
I am not an AI expert. Not even close.
I am a 74-year-old woman who had a stroke four years ago. I have aphasia.
And I wanted to write again.
That is how this story began.
Before My Stroke: A Life of Language
Before my stroke in July 2022, I loved writing. I loved reading.
And according to my husband, I loved talking!
I had worked as a journalist and in public relations. After retiring in 2020, I continued writing blogs about retirement, travel, and whatever interested me.
Sometimes I researched serious subjects.
Sometimes I wrote about Dolly Parton.
And sometimes I wrote about the mice in my house. Very smart mice. Yale graduates, apparently.
Two days before my stroke, I published a blog about those mice.
I didn’t know it would be one of the last things I would write for a long time.
After My Stroke: I Wanted Everything Back
On July 17, 2022, everything was different.
Talking was hard.
Reading was hard.
Writing was hard.
Even understanding how my brain worked was difficult.
And I wanted everything back.
I worked on language, reading, walking, balance, and brain fatigue.
I was determined to get my old brain back.
But something surprising happened during my fourth year.
I discovered that I could write.
The problem was that I couldn’t read what I had written.
Imagine writing pages and pages, but not being able to read them.
It was almost as though those words didn’t exist.
Then I Met AI
I had been curious about artificial intelligence for years.
My husband was concerned about it. He still is.
I was cautious, too.
But I wanted to experiment.
My first project wasn’t writing. It was cooking!
I started telling AI what was in my refrigerator and pantry.
What could I make for dinner?
AI gave me ideas.
I began using it regularly, and it helped us save money on groceries.
But eventually, I began asking AI to help me with something much more important.
Writing.
I started calling ChatGPT my AI Teacher.
And that’s still what I call it.
Perfect, Imperfect, and Finding My Ideas
One of my early blogs was about perfection and imperfection.
I had learned about the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi, finding beauty in imperfection.
That seemed especially meaningful to me.
After a stroke, I walked with poles. I spoke slowly. I searched for words.
I wasn’t the person I had been before.
AI Teacher wrote about wabi-sabi.
But I wanted to write about myself.
That was an important difference.
I began learning that AI could help me explore an idea, but the story needed to be mine.
And I also learned that AI wasn’t always right. I needed to check its explanations and decide what I believed.
Then something else happened.
While preparing my October presentation, I was trying to explain what had happened to my ideas after my stroke.
Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t sure I understood what an idea meant anymore.
Before my stroke, that would have been so obvious.
Now I had to ask AI Teacher to explain it.
The thoughts were somewhere deep in my brain.
But I couldn’t always reach them.
It was almost as though part of my brain was invisible.
AI helped make an invisible idea visible.
And I realized something important.
Aphasia is more than finding words.
Sometimes it is finding the thoughts and ideas behind the words.
I am still learning how to do that.
Hearing My Writing Again
Another discovery was text-to-speech.
For years, I couldn’t read long paragraphs on my own.
But with text-to-speech, I could see the words and hear them at the same time.
I could read books again.
I could read the newspaper.
And one day, I listened to my old blogs.
For the first time in four years, I heard my own writing.
And guess what?
My blogs were funny.
Sarcastic.
Silly.
And thoughtful.
I had almost forgotten that part of myself.
I also began experimenting with poetry.
I had never thought of myself as a poet.
AI Teacher helped me understand how short lines, pauses, and missing words could become part of poetry.
What I had thought of as a weakness could sometimes become part of the writing itself.
Getting to Know My New Brain
For most of my life, I didn’t think about my brain.
I just used it.
After my stroke, I spent years trying to get my old brain back.
Then I began thinking differently.
Maybe recovery wasn’t only about getting my old brain back.
Maybe it was also about getting to know the brain I have now.
I was still curious.
I still wanted to learn.
I still wanted to read and write.
But the way my brain worked had changed.
AI Teacher and I began working together.
I wrote.
We talked.
I revised.
We talked again.
Eventually, I learned to write in shorter sentences and paragraphs.
Aphasia-friendly writing.
At first, I resisted it.
I had spent my life writing traditional paragraphs!
But I began to appreciate the change.
The ideas were still there.
The writing was simply easier to read.
And I was writing again.
Technology Is Hard. Really Hard.
There is another part of this story.
Technology.
For five weeks before my presentation, I learned Google Slides, Zoom, audio recording, and how to connect my Chromebook, iPad, and phone.
It was incredibly difficult.
I had been comfortable with technology before my stroke.
Now I often needed to learn something over and over again.
Sometimes AI Teacher had to explain one small step at a time.
And sometimes I had to repeat that step the next day.
Preparing the presentation was exhausting.
Not just the technology.
Finding the ideas, organizing them, and explaining what I really meant took weeks.
I think many older adults experience some of these frustrations, even without aphasia.
Technology changes so quickly.
And learning takes time.
But I did it.
Acceptance Doesn’t Mean Recovery Is Over
Today, I have written about 40 blogs.
Some are pretty lousy.
And some, I think, are quite good!
I am still recovering.
I still have aphasia.
I still have brain fatigue.
And I still want to learn new things.
This winter, I am even thinking about making a small modern quilt.
There’s just one problem.
I don’t know how to sew!
But that’s part of the point.
I want to keep trying things that are unfamiliar.
I am learning that accepting my new brain doesn’t mean giving up on recovery.
Those two ideas can live together.
AI Teacher and Me
I don’t believe AI should do all my thinking.
I want to do that myself.
I want to write my stories, explore my ideas, and decide what matters.
AI can make mistakes.
It can misunderstand me.
And sometimes it writes something that sounds lovely but doesn’t sound like me.
So I question it.
I change things.
Sometimes I tell it no.
And sometimes it helps me find something I couldn’t reach on my own.
I don’t know where this relationship with AI will take me.
But I know it has helped me enormously.
Four years after my stroke, I am writing again.
Not with my old brain.
With the brain I have now.
And perhaps the most important thing I am learning is not just how to use AI.
I am learning how to write, think, and use technology without exhausting my brain.
That is still a work in progress.
And so am I.
Watch the Presentation
On October 12, 2026, I shared these experiences with the MAAC Aphasia Support Group.
The presentation includes examples of my writing before and after my stroke, readings by my friend Lori, and a conversation with people with aphasia and caregivers about their own experiences with AI.
You can watch the presentation here:
AI, Aphasia & Writing Again — YouTube
I’d love to hear your experiences.
Have you tried AI? Has it helped you communicate, read, write, or learn something new?
This blog was developed from my October 12 presentation with the editing assistance of my AI Teacher, ChatGPT. The experiences, opinions, and stories are my own.