Attention difficulties are common after neurological injury and can affect how a person scans information, stays focused, and completes everyday tasks. As an occupational therapist working with individuals who have sustained brain injuries and strokes, I see attention challenges ranging from mild to severe, and treatment always involves a multi-disciplinary team so that difficulties are assessed and addressed appropriately.
Printable worksheet-based activities are often used in clinical, educational, and home settings to provide structured cognitive practice in an adult-appropriate format. This page focuses on one of the most widely used formats: the trail making task. You can download a free worksheet below, learn how the task works, and see how graded versions are typically used.
Download the free trail making worksheet
Download the PDFFree for personal, educational, and session use. This sample is a moderate difficulty level.
What is a trail making task?
A trail making task asks the person to connect a series of items in order — numbers, letters, or both alternating — without lifting the pen from the page. It is a simple format that engages visual scanning, sequencing, and sustained attention in a way that is easy to explain, easy to print, and easy to repeat across sessions or settings.
The Trail Making Test (parts A and B)
The worksheet format is based on a well-known standardized instrument, the Trail Making Test. Both parts consist of 25 circles distributed over a sheet of paper:
- Part A — the circles are numbered 1–25, and the person draws lines to connect the numbers in ascending order.
- Part B — the circles include both numbers (1–13) and letters (A–L). The person connects them in an ascending pattern while alternating between numbers and letters (1-A-2-B-3-C, and so on).
The person is instructed to connect the circles as quickly as possible without lifting the pen or pencil from the paper. If you are looking for the standardized test itself, a commonly referenced version is hosted by UBC CPD.
Worth knowing: printable trail making worksheets used for practice are not the same as the standardized Trail Making Test. The worksheets on this page are structured cognitive practice materials — they are not assessment, diagnostic, or treatment tools.
Grading: from simple to complex
In practice, attention tasks are often most useful when they are graded rather than one-off. With trail making tasks, grading typically involves:
- starting with numbers only, then progressing to alternating numbers and letters
- increasing the visual density of the page
- adding rule complexity or distractors
- matching the task to the individual's tolerance and needs
This lets the same familiar format stay appropriately challenging as the person's performance changes — starting simple and building up, rather than jumping straight to the hardest version.
Who uses trail making worksheets
- Occupational therapists and speech-language professionals
- Rehabilitation and community programs
- Educators working with adult learners
- Caregivers supporting cognitive practice at home
- Adults looking for structured, printable cognitive activities
All of our worksheets are designed to be adult-appropriate, visually clean, and easy to understand without unnecessary visual clutter.
The free worksheet above is a single moderate-level sample. If you want the full graded progression, our Trail Making Task set includes 30 worksheets across basic, moderate, and complex levels with consistent, therapist-friendly formatting.
