Grocery Shopping Simulator

About the Grocery Shopping exercise

A weekly shop asks for more than it seems: holding a list in mind while the shelves offer a hundred other things, noticing that the bread on the list is not there today and deciding what to take instead, reading a label for someone who must not have nuts, choosing between two bags of rice, and keeping the total inside what is in the wallet. After a stroke or brain injury, or with memory and attention changes, each of those steps can take longer and the half-price cake by the door can win.

The Grocery Shopping Simulator is a structured practice and observation activity rather than a quick exercise. It plays like a grocery shopping game built around one ordinary list. A clinician starts a session and hands over the tablet; the client becomes Sam, a fictional person, and spends about 20 minutes shopping a list of eight items with $30 in a store of six aisles. Every item that goes into the basket becomes an observation record, checked against the list.

What Grocery Shopping practices

Working from a list

Eight items with sizes and quantities, such as a gallon of milk rather than a half gallon, a dozen eggs rather than six, and two cups of yogurt rather than one or a four-pack, found across six aisles of product cards.

Deciding when something is missing

Two items on the list are out of stock. The shelf says so and nothing more; the client chooses a substitute, takes something else, or leaves it.

Reading labels and comparing prices

Cookies for a friend who must not have nuts, where the only clue is the label behind Look closer, and two bags of rice whose shelf tags print the price per pound.

Keeping to a budget while things interrupt

A $30 budget with no running total unless the clinician turns one on, a half-price cake and a three-for-five chips offer in the way, and a text message at three minutes that adds a lemon to the list.

How the tool works and what it records

Four switches set up a session: the text message, a running total in the basket, audio narration with the text always shown, and large print. A five-tap practice in a one-aisle store covers Add to basket, the plus and minus, Look closer, the basket, and Go to checkout. Sam is introduced, the client says how hard they expect the shop to be and how many mistakes they expect, and the store opens: the list on the left with tick circles, six aisle tabs on the right, and four product cards to a row, each with its picture, size, price and price per unit. Anything added can be removed until Pay is tapped. Nothing on screen ticks the list, warns about nuts, highlights the cheaper rice, or says right or wrong.

Go to checkout asks whether the client has everything, then the till shows an itemized total. Above $30 the till says what the total is and what the client has, and the only way on is back to the store; at or under $30 a Pay button appears, then the change. Two quiet minutes bring an Are you finished? prompt. The record lists each item on the list against what was in the basket (as on the list, not bought, different item, different quantity, substitute, or not replaced), the extras, the cookies with their label quoted, the rice with both prices per pound, each till visit, the text message and the lemon, the route through the aisles with the time in each, before and after ratings, strategies seen by the app beside those ticked by the clinician, cues, and a full timeline. One session a month is free; Pro adds unlimited sessions, the observation record, and PDF export.

Screen or paper?

The screen suits sessions where the record matters: every add and remove is timed and saved, the message arrives at the same moment every time, and the basket is checked against the list without counting by hand afterward. Paper shopping practice suits working through a printed list and flyer at a table, sessions without a device, and clients for whom writing the list is part of the practice.

There is a executive function guide on rehabworksheets.com, with printable practice to try alongside.

Using it well

• Leave the running total off the first time. A real basket does not add up for you, and estimating the total is part of the task. Turn the running total on for a client who needs it, and turn narration off for one who reads faster than they listen.
• Stay quiet and use the toolbar. Log cues from the clinician toolbar instead of pointing. It can show one of six hint cards on screen, such as Read the label before you add it, and each card shown is recorded as a cue.
• Code the text message as it lands. The toolbar offers four response codes for the message: continued what they were doing first, dealt with it and returned, lost their place, or stopped and needed a prompt. The code sits beside the app's own facts in the record.
• Read the item table first. The record's main table lists all eight items, plus the lemon from the message, with what was expected and what went in the basket. The label, the rice, the two out-of-stock items, and the till follow as plain facts.
• Adapt for hand or reading difficulties. Everything is a tap on a large button; there is no dragging and no typing. Each list item has a speaker button, large print enlarges the list, the cards, and the labels, and a partner can point while the client confirms each item.

Common questions