Everyday Object Naming
Resolve Speech Therapy · Aphasia series
Tap a heading to open or close it. Only open what you need right now.
A picture of an everyday object is shown, and the person tries to name it. If the word doesn't come straight away, a set structure of cues is worked through step by step — starting with the least support and building up to the most — until the word is found.
This structured build-up is called a cueing hierarchy, and it's one of the most common tools used in naming therapy for aphasia.
Word-finding difficulty (anomia) is one of the most common features of aphasia. The word is often still "in there" but hard to access on demand.
Working through cues in order — starting with the object's features, then a sound cue, then a written model — gives the brain several different routes toward the same word, and repeated practice with this structure can strengthen retrieval over time.
Good candidates usually have word-finding difficulty (anomia) as a feature of their aphasia, with reasonable single-word comprehension and the ability to follow a multi-step task with support.
Less suitable for people with very limited comprehension, since the semantic cueing steps rely on understanding spoken description.
Cueing hierarchies combining semantic cues (features, category, use) with phonological cues (first sound, first letter) are well established in aphasia naming therapy. Reviews of naming treatments consistently find that structured cueing improves picture-naming accuracy, with some evidence of generalisation to untrained items and connected speech.
Wambaugh et al. (2001), J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. · Boyle & Coelho (1995), Am. J. Speech-Lang. Pathol. · Wisenburn & Mahoney (2009), Aphasiology
- 1. Present the picture — "What's this?" and give time to respond
- 2. Guided semantic feature analysis — talk through appearance, use, location, category, what it does
- 3. First letter & first sound — a phonological cue
- 4. Written model — show the word in writing
- 5. Semantic judgements ×5 — yes/no questions such as "Do you find it in the kitchen?"
- 6. Sum up — recall two characteristics, then say and write the word
- Give time — pause before giving the next clue; word-finding can take longer than it feels
- Note where the word was found — the level of clue needed is useful information in itself, and something to track over time
- Mix it up — vary the categories practised in a session rather than working straight through one group
- Celebrate any success — naming with clues is still naming; independent recall usually improves with repetition
Show the picture and ask "What's this?" first, with no clues at all. Only start giving clues if the word doesn't come.
Notes for this item
How did today's practice feel?
Rate how finding the words went overall.
Overall session rating
Rate the client's naming and clue use today.
Naming progress summary
Reflect on today
Any pictures that felt easier, or trickier, than expected?
Goals for next session
Note which categories or clue levels to focus on next time.
📧 Email your session notes
Enter your therapist's email address. We'll open Gmail in a new tab with your notes ready to send.