Why a Simple Activity Is Not Always Simple: The Invisible Cognitive Load in Youth Work

Imagine a youth worker giving a group what seems like a simple task:

“Read the instructions, choose a role, remember the three steps, complete the activity with your team, and be ready to present your results in ten minutes.”

For many participants, this may feel straightforward.

For others, however, the same activity involves managing several demands at once: reading and understanding the instructions, keeping information in mind, organising the sequence of actions, monitoring time, interacting with other participants, and preparing what to say afterwards.

The activity is the same. The mental effort required to navigate it may not be.

This difference is often invisible. And that makes cognitive load an important concept for youth workers who want to create genuinely inclusive activities.

What do we mean by cognitive load?

Cognitive Load Theory comes from research in cognitive psychology and instructional design. One of its central ideas is relatively simple: our working memory — the system we use to temporarily hold and work with information — has a limited capacity.

When a task requires us to process too many interacting pieces of new information at the same time, that capacity can become overloaded.

Think again about the activity above.

A participant may need to remember:

• what the task is;
• what their role is;
• what comes first, second and third;
• how much time is left;
• what the other members of the group are doing;
• what information will need to be presented at the end.

None of these demands may seem particularly difficult on its own. The challenge can come from having to manage them simultaneously.

This is one reason why the apparent simplicity of an activity does not necessarily tell us how easy it is to process.

When the effort is invisible

Cognitive load is not something a youth worker can simply see. A participant may hesitate before starting. They may repeatedly check the instructions, forget one step, lose track of time or ask a question that has already been answered.

In a group setting, these behaviours can easily be interpreted as distraction, lack of preparation or limited engagement. Behaviour does not always tell us what is happening underneath.

For some young people with Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs), certain aspects of an activity — particularly those involving reading, writing, numerical processing, sequencing or holding information in mind — may require additional effort.

This does not mean that every young person with an SLD experiences cognitive load in the same way, nor that cognitive overload is unique to people with SLDs. Anyone can become overloaded when a task places too many simultaneous demands on their available cognitive resources.

The difference is that some apparently routine elements of an activity may already require substantial effort for a participant with a specific learning difficulty. Adding several more demands at the same time can make participation harder than it appears from the outside.

The hidden complexity of youth activities

Youth work is often practical, social and dynamic. These qualities are part of what makes non-formal education valuable. But they can also create complex situations.

Consider a typical group game. Participants might have to listen to the facilitator, remember rules, move between different locations, keep track of points, communicate with teammates and react quickly when something changes. Or consider a workshop in which participants receive a written case study, discuss it in small groups, record their conclusions and then present them to everyone else.

These are engaging activities. Yet each contains multiple layers of information and action. The question for an inclusive youth worker is therefore not simply:

“Is this activity difficult?”

but:

“How many things are participants being asked to process at the same time?”

That small change in perspective can reveal barriers that are otherwise easy to miss.

Reducing unnecessary load without reducing the challenge

Making an activity cognitively accessible does not mean making it less meaningful, less ambitious or less challenging. The goal is not necessarily to remove the challenge that belongs to the activity itself. Instead, it can mean removing complexity that does not contribute to the purpose of the activity.

If the objective is teamwork, for example, does success also need to depend on remembering six verbal instructions? If the objective is problem-solving, does a participant need to read a dense page of text before they can begin solving the problem? If the objective is communication, does everyone need to produce a written answer?

Small design choices can make a significant difference.

Instructions can be divided into shorter steps rather than delivered all at once. Important information can remain visible during the activity instead of having to be remembered. A demonstration can accompany a verbal explanation. Participants can be given a moment to process instructions before the activity starts. Complex tasks can be divided into stages, with clear transitions between them.

The challenge remains. The unnecessary cognitive demands are reduced.

Watch the activity, not only the participant

This perspective also changes the questions youth workers can ask when an activity is not working.

When someone repeatedly loses their place, we can ask whether the sequence is sufficiently visible.

When participants keep asking what happens next, we can look at how the instructions were presented.

When a young person struggles to begin, we can examine how many decisions or pieces of information they are expected to manage before taking the first step.

In other words, instead of immediately asking:

“Why is this participant struggling with the activity?”

we can also ask:

“Is there something about the way the activity is designed that is making participation unnecessarily difficult?”

This does not remove individual responsibility or eliminate every challenge. It simply recognises that difficulties emerge from an interaction between the person, the task and the environment.

Good design can support everyone

There is another important reason for youth workers to think about cognitive load. Many of the adjustments that reduce unnecessary processing demands do not need to be reserved for participants with a diagnosis.

Clear steps can help someone participating in their second language. Visible instructions can help a participant who joins an activity late. A demonstration can support someone who finds a verbal explanation difficult to follow. Breaking a complex task into stages can help an entire group stay focused.

This is one of the advantages of designing inclusion into an activity from the beginning rather than adding individual adaptations only when difficulties become visible.

An activity can remain challenging, collaborative and engaging while becoming easier to navigate.

Making invisible barriers visible

The DYS in Youth Field project is working to help youth workers recognise barriers that can easily remain unnoticed in non-formal learning environments.

Through training resources, practical materials, games and guidelines, the project explores how activities can be designed and adapted so that young people with Specific Learning Disorders can participate more fully.

Understanding cognitive load adds another perspective to this work. Sometimes the barrier is not the activity itself. It is the number of things a participant is expected to read, remember, organise, interpret and do — all at the same time.

And sometimes inclusion begins by making that invisible effort visible.

Sources

• Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 261–292. DOI: 10.1007/s10648-019-09465-5.
• Chen, O., Paas, F., & Sweller, J. (2023). A Cognitive Load Theory Approach to Defining and Measuring Task Complexity Through Element Interactivity. Educational Psychology Review, 35, Article 63. DOI: 10.1007/s10648-023-09782-w.
• Sweller, J. (2023). The Development of Cognitive Load Theory: Replication Crises and Incorporation of Other Theories Can Lead to Theory Expansion. Educational Psychology Review, 35, Article 95. DOI: 10.1007/s10648-023-09817-2.
• DYS in Youth Field. Making youth work inclusive for every learning profile. Official Project website