My wife had a stroke a few years ago which affected her ability to speak. Her social speech was fairly good (How are you? I'm fine.). Her purposeful speech though was almost non-existant ( Where is the bathroom?). We learned of the Aphasia Center of California from her speech therapist when she was recovering from her stroke. She started attending one of the Aphasia Center's Conversation Groups and it was amazing how much her ability to work around her lack of purposeful speech improved. I also believe that her meeting with and being around other individuals who suffered from similar difficulties made a vast difference in her ability to cope with her aphasia. The interaction between these aphasia stroke individuals and the way they encourage each other is both amazing and up lifting.