9 Activities for Attention, Memory, and Information Processing
Jul 23, 2026
9 Occupational Therapy Activities for Attention, Memory, and Information Processing
Attention and memory difficulties may show up when a person forgets part of a conversation, loses track of directions, misses an appointment, becomes overwhelmed while preparing a meal, or cannot remember information long enough to act on it.
For occupational therapy practitioners, our goal is to understand how attention, encoding, working memory, delayed recall, and information processing affect participation in everyday life.
Member Resource: Attention Hierarchy and Patient Education Handout
The activities below can be used to explore and address these skills while allowing you, as the practitioner, to adjust the amount of information, level of interference, response demands, environmental complexity, and functional relevance.
Why Attention Matters for Memory
Member Resource: How Memory Works Patient Education Handout
Memory begins with attention.
Before information can be recalled later, the person must first notice it, attend to it, and encode it. A participant who does not fully register a direction may appear to have a memory problem when the original difficulty was actually reduced attention, slowed processing, distraction, or cognitive overload.
Because this process is so multi-dementional, occupational therapy activities should not examine memory in isolation. Instead, practitioners can observe many components simultaneously.
Some of these components include:
- whether the participant attends to the full message
- how much information can be processed at once
- whether repetition improves performance
- what happens when a delay or distraction is introduced
- whether a strategy supports recall
- whether the information can be used during an everyday task
Here are some of my favorite go-to activities:
1. Main-Idea and Detail Recall
Use a short paragraph, news story, devotional reading, recipe, appointment message, or other meaningful passage. English Unite has a great selection of free short stories to use!
Read the material aloud and ask the participant to identify:
- the main idea
- two or three supporting details
- what action may need to be taken
- why the information matters
This activity can address auditory attention, comprehension, working memory, organization, and the ability to distinguish essential information from less important detail.
Grade the activity down
Use fewer sentences, slower presentation, familiar subject matter, written keywords, or a smaller number of details.
Grade the activity up
Increase the passage length, include more competing details, remove written support, ask for information in a different order, or introduce a brief delay before recall.
A motor activity can also be placed between presentation and recall. For example, the participant might hear an appointment message, complete a short walking or reaching task, and then explain the time, location, and preparation instructions.
2. Attention to Detail With Immediate Recall
Member Resources:
- Attention to Detail Level 1
- Attention to Detail Level 2
- Attention to Detail Level 3
- Attention to Detail Level 4
- Attention to Detail Level 5
- Attention to Detail Level 6
Read one or two sentences containing several specific details. Then ask questions immediately.
For example:
Maria has a dental appointment on Thursday at 10:30 in the morning. She needs to bring her insurance card and arrive 15 minutes early.
Questions might include:
- What day is the appointment?
- What time is it?
- What does Maria need to bring?
- How early should she arrive?
This task helps the practitioner observe how much auditory information the participant registers and retains over a very short interval.
It can also reveal whether errors are related to:
- missing the beginning or end of the message
- difficulty retaining numbers
- confusion between similar details
- slowed processing
- impulsive responding
- reduced comprehension
Member Resource: Verbal Memory Patient Education Handout
3. Delayed Recall With Interference
Once immediate recall is reasonably successful, add a delay.
During the delay, ask the participant to complete an unrelated activity, such as:
- naming items in a category
- solving simple calculations
- organizing cards
- discussing an unrelated topic
- completing a brief motor task
- scanning the room for designated objects
Afterward, ask the original questions again.
The purpose is not merely to make the task harder. The practitioner is observing whether the participant can maintain or retrieve information after attention has shifted elsewhere.
Interference can help reveal difficulties with:
- encoding
- consolidation
- working-memory maintenance
- cognitive flexibility
- returning to a previous task
- resistance to distraction
4. Alternating Between Two Sources of Information
Present two short stories, messages, or sets of instructions in alternating segments.
For example:
- Read the first part of a grocery-planning scenario.
- Read the first part of an appointment scenario.
- Return to the grocery scenario.
- Return to the appointment scenario.
- Ask questions about both.
This places demands on alternating attention because the participant must shift between information sets while keeping each one organized.
A more functional version might require the participant to alternate between:
- following a recipe and answering a phone message
- organizing a calendar and responding to written directions
- locating items and remembering a verbal request
- completing a household task while tracking a second responsibility
Member Resource: Recipe Activity with Interference (using beads)
5. Numeric Information From a Narrative
Member Resources: Numeric Extrapolation Intervention Activity
Numbers are often especially difficult to retain because they may be less meaningful than words.
Read a short message that includes several numbers, such as:
The community class begins at 2:00, costs $15, and meets in Room 4. Participants should arrive 10 minutes early.
Ask the participant to identify the numbers and explain what each one represents.
A magnetic board, written number choices, or index cards can be used to reduce the memory demand while still requiring the person to associate each number with its meaning.
This activity can be connected to:
- appointment times
- medication dosages
- prices
- phone numbers
- addresses
- recipe quantities
- transportation schedules
Member Resources for Numeric Manipulation (Home Activity Worksheets | Priming)
- Numeric Manipulation Explanation Handout
- Numeric Manipulation Worksheet 1
- Numeric Manipulation Worksheet 2
- Numeric Manipulation Worksheet 3
- Numeric Manipulation Worksheet 4
- Numeric Manipulation 5
- Numeric Manipulation 6
- Numeric Manipulation 7
6. Word-Span Activities
Member Resources:
Give the participant a short sequence of words and ask for immediate recall.
Begin with related words, such as:
apple, banana, orange
Then compare performance with unrelated words:
lamp, horse, paper
The activity can be graded by changing:
- the number of words
- whether the words are related
- the presentation speed
- the delay before recall
- whether the participant repeats the list immediately
- whether movement occurs during the delay
- whether the words must be recalled in order
Meaningful words can also be selected from the participant’s routines, interests, faith, family roles, work history, or current goals.
Rather than reporting only the number remembered, document whether the participant used strategies such as grouping, visualization, rehearsal, association, or creating a short story.
7. Digit Span and Digit Reversal
Member Resources:
Read a sequence of numbers and ask the participant to repeat them in the same order.
For a more complex version, ask for the sequence in reverse order.
Repeating numbers forward primarily places demands on attention and immediate auditory storage. Reversing them adds working-memory manipulation because the participant must retain the sequence and mentally reorganize it before responding.
Digit tasks may be useful for examining performance, but they should not automatically be described as functional intervention. Their relevance becomes stronger when linked to a need such as:
- retaining part of a phone number
- remembering an access code
- holding a quantity in mind
- following numbered steps
- managing financial information
The practitioner can also use digit spans briefly as an interference task between meaningful functional activities.
8. Name and Face Association
Member Resource: Full Face and Name Continuum Resources
Present several photographs with names and ask the participant to create an association for each person.
For example:
- “Rose is wearing red.”
- “Mark has a mustache.”
- “Susan reminds me of my neighbor.”
Remove the names and ask the participant to recall them.
This activity can be modified by changing:
- the number of faces
- the viewing time
- whether first names or full names are required
- whether written choices are available
- whether the recall is immediate or delayed
- whether the person creates the association independently
The occupational relevance should remain explicit. A practitioner might use this type of task when a participant reports difficulty learning the names of caregivers, neighbors, coworkers, group members, or people in a new living environment.
9. Functional Messages and Instructions
One of the easiest ways to increase functional relevance is to replace generic memory material with information that resembles daily life.
Examples include:
- a voicemail about an appointment
- instructions for taking a medication
- a grocery request
- directions for completing a household task
- transportation information
- a message from a family member
- steps for using an appliance
- details from a medical recommendation
Ask the participant to listen, identify the important information, and determine what should happen next.
The therapist can then assess whether an external strategy is needed, such as:
- writing the message down
- repeating it aloud
- entering it into a phone
- using a calendar
- setting an alarm
- highlighting action words
- asking the speaker to slow down
- requesting one direction at a time
This shifts the intervention from practicing recall alone to improving the participant’s ability to manage information in real contexts.
8 Ways to Grade Memory Activities More Precisely
Amount of information: Increase or decrease the number of words, details, instructions, people, or steps.
Presentation speed: Speak more slowly, pause between ideas, or present information at a natural conversational pace.
Meaningfulness: Use familiar and personally relevant information before moving toward unfamiliar content.
Delay: Ask for immediate recall first, then add a short or longer delay.
Interference: Introduce conversation, calculations, categorization, movement, or another occupation between presentation and recall.
Environmental demand: Begin in a quiet environment before adding background noise, visual clutter, movement, or social distraction.
Response demand: Allow recognition or multiple-choice responses before requiring free recall, sequencing, explanation, or action.
Strategy availability: Compare unsupported performance with performance using notes, repetition, association, chunking, visualization, alarms, or calendars.
Motor demand: Add standing, reaching, walking, carrying, or object manipulation only when it is safe and relevant to the participant’s occupational goals.
The goal is to identify the participant’s just-right challenge, not to add difficulty simply for the sake of difficulty. The source document repeatedly emphasizes adjusting task demands so the activity remains challenging but achievable.
What Occupational Therapy Practitioners Should Document
A strong note should describe what the participant actually did and how they performed.
Useful variables include:
- amount and type of information presented
- immediate versus delayed recall
- length of the delay
- type of interference
- number of correct responses
- types of errors
- number of repetitions
- cueing required
- strategies used
- response time
- signs of cognitive fatigue
- change across trials
- functional meaning of the observed performance
Sample documentation
The participant completed an auditory attention and delayed-recall activity using four functional messages containing appointment, transportation, and household information. Each message included three to five relevant details. Following a two-minute unrelated sorting task, the participant independently recalled 11 of 16 details and improved to 15 of 16 with one repetition and use of written keywords. Errors occurred most frequently for times and numerical information. Performance suggests that external recording of numeric details may improve the participant’s ability to manage appointments and verbal instructions.
A Reminder About Dual Tasking
Helpful Resources:
Adding walking, balance, reaching, or another motor activity can be useful when the participant needs to manage cognitive information during movement...but movement should not be added automatically.
First, determine:
- whether the combined task resembles a meaningful occupational demand
- whether the participant can safely perform both components
- which task should receive priority
- whether performance declines in the cognitive task, motor task, or both
- whether the task should be practiced together or separated first
For some participants, remembering information while walking through a busy environment is highly relevant. For others, seated strategy training may provide more immediate value.
From Cognitive Exercise to Functional Cognition
Helpful Resource: Functional Cognition Information Page
A worksheet can be clinically useful, but the worksheet is not the final outcome. It doesn't stop there, it must also connect dots back to the person's life!
The therapist should continually ask:
- What everyday activity requires this skill?
- What type of information is difficult for this participant?
- Under what conditions does performance break down?
- What strategy changes performance?
- Can the participant apply that strategy outside therapy?
Attention and memory interventions become more occupationally meaningful when they help the person manage real information, make decisions, complete routines, and participate more independently.
Continue Learning With Us
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