Handling and manipulating small objects may be compromised in older age due to declines in sensory abilities and fine-motor control (Kuehn et al., 2018). Increasing cognitive load can further exacerbate adult age differences. The current study investigates whether sensory deprivation makes young adults perform similar to old adults (Vieweg & Schaefer, 2020). We used glasses that reduce near visual acuity and gardening gloves to simulate age-related constraints in young adults. Young adults were randomly distributed across four experimental groups: no simulation (n= 12), glasses (n= 13), gloves (n= 13), or both (n= 11), and were compared to middle-aged and older adults (age range 40 -77 years; n= 17). Participants were instructed to sort and count sets of 100 coloured chocolate lentils by colour over the course of 8 sessions. The number for each colour should be written down immediately after counting it (= no load), or only after all five colours had been counted (= load). Wearing gloves increased the counting times of young adults to the level of middle-aged and older adults. Working with a cognitive load as compared to no load increased counting times for older adults and for young adults without gloves, but the load-effect was absent in young adults with gloves. This indicates that young adults can “use” their slowed motor performance to increase cognitive processing. We argue that this is a compensatory strategy that is not available to older adults. Future research will use sensory deprivations in older adults as well.