Taking Notes

SKILL: Writing

DIFFICULTY: 4/5

LEVELS: 3 based on length of recording and number of details to note

BRIEF RATIONALE: Taking notes is a common strategy that uses listening, writing, reading, and memory skills.

In Taking Notes, you will learn strategies for effective note-taking to recall information:

• Start with the main idea
• Note key points
• Keep it short
• Re-read & update

There are 4 categories of recordings to practice this life skill: Daily Living, Work, Medical, and Learning. You will listen to recordings and note key points. Then, you will answer 3 questions using your notes. At the end of each trial, you will compare your note with an example and reflect on what you might do differently next time. The treatment auto-adjusts in difficulty based on performance.

AUDIO CONTROLS: You can listen to the audio more than once without penalty on the first step.

• Go Back: Go back 5 seconds.
• Slower: Enable a slower speech rate.

You can also view the transcript of the recording without penalty while you're writing your note.

HINT: A hint button is available in the lower-left corner of the screen to provide multiple-choice answers. Using the hint will mark the item as incorrect (as it was not answered with your note only), but may help you answer the question.

FOR THE CLINICIAN:

Writing information down allows patients to pick it back up when needed, rather than struggling to hold everything in their limited internal memory. According to Böing and colleagues (2026), both stroke patients and healthy controls generally prefer to offload information externally in this way. External support is also the #2 recommendation for memory rehabilitation for TBI survivors according to the INCOG 2.0 guidelines.

Unfortunately, note-taking isn't that simple for those with an acquired brain injury. It taxes multiple levels of attention at once: sustained attention to stay with the speaker, selective attention to screen out competing input, and alternating or divided attention to move between listening and writing. It also requires a patient to hold verbal information in working memory, monitor comprehension in real time, separate the main ideas from the details, and condense it into writing that makes sense on later review. And even if the note is well-written, the patient might not use it efficiently. This is why note-taking should be taught, not assumed.

Taking Notes provides repeated practice to target this specific real-world skill. It features a metacognitive reflection to increase the likelihood of generalization outside of the Virtual Rehab Center.

Selected References:

1. Böing, S., Nijboer, T. C., Ten Brink, A. F., & Van der Stigchel, S. (2026). Relying on the external world after stroke: Individual variability in compensation strategies in working memory use. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 1–37.
2. Velikonja, D., Ponsford, J., Janzen, S., Harnett, A., Patsakos, E., Kennedy, M., Togher, L., Teasell, R., McIntyre, A., Welch-West, P., Kua, A., & Bayley, M. T. (2023). INCOG 2.0 guidelines for cognitive rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury, part V: Memory. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 38(1), 83–102.