Laura Graham Occupational Therapy

06/03/2026

Another fabulous low cost idea from JD the OT Therapy Services to support a variety of foundational skills.

04/03/2026

Love this idea to support star jumps mastery from JD the OT Therapy Services such a simple idea but reallt effective. Visual supports are so useful.

01/03/2026

The Inspired Treehouse doing a fabulous job with these simple yet effective bilateral activities. We often recommend many of these to development the underlying skills needed for many functional skills. https://www.facebook.com/share/1Jr9j5bUPP/

🧩 Did you know that “bilateral coordination” means using both sides of the body together smoothly? It’s super important for things like tying shoes, cutting with scissors, eating, and so much more!

✨ What our top picks for Toys & activities that encourage both arms to work together help build motor planning, strength, & coordination? Drop a 👏🏼 below. ✨

01/03/2026

What a cool idea to get us in that prone extension position from

01/03/2026

More ideas to incorporate breath work as a playful activity whilst activating the vagus nerve and supporting regulation. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BfbEFJQiV/

Are you signed up for the BREAD approach to Regulation? If you are an educator or professional supporting children and young people BREAD is a simple 5 step framework to help you to support regulation. Myself and Ali Neal the Classroom OT teach the theory and practical stratergies you can use to support the nervous system. If you are interested to find out more comment BREAD below or take a look here https://schoolsensorysolutions.co.uk/the-bread-approach

28/02/2026

Yes to vertical surfaces for handwriting. Thanks Integrated Learning Strategies for this post. Such simple ideas that really do make a big difference.

Comment “VERTICAL” to grab our favorite vertical surface toys that help build strong handwriting foundations.

Let’s break down why vertical surfaces matter for handwriting…

Using toys and activities on vertical surfaces (like walls, easels, windows, or whiteboards) isn’t just play, it’s powerful brain and body work. Vertical play naturally activates a child’s core, shoulders, arms, and hands, all of which are essential for writing.

When children don’t get enough vertical surface work, you may notice some of these challenges:
🧠 Poor posture or slouching at the table
✋ Weak hand strength or hand fatigue when writing
✍️ Difficulty forming letters neatly
💪 Weak shoulder and arm stability
🖐️ Awkward pencil grasp or switching hands often
😩 Avoidance of coloring, drawing, or writing tasks

Vertical surface toys help by:
✔️ Strengthening the shoulders and core
✔️ Improving wrist position and hand control
✔️ Supporting proper pencil grasp
✔️ Making pre-writing and writing feel easier

If you want simple, playful ways to support handwriting before frustration sets in, we’ve rounded up our favorite vertical surface toys and activities.

For more activities that get kids working and playing on vertical spaces, comment “VERTICAL” and we’ll send you the link. 👇

28/02/2026

Here are some of my favourite Therapy activites from a recent session. The session was really fun and worked on some underlying developmental skills needed for functional tasks such as handwriting, cutlery use and dressing.

Can you guess what foundation skills we were targeting?

26/02/2026

Here is a little video of a recent B&M haul of resources for therapy sessions. Some of these will be used for regulation as part of my work on the BREAD Approch to Regulation with Ali Neal the Classroom OT and School Sensory Solutions. If you are intrigued to find out more follow this link https://schoolsensorysolutions.co.uk/the-bread-approach

Let me know if you are interested in any other equipment videos by commenting below.

13/02/2026

It's the halfway point of this academic year and I'm reflecting on all that has been experienced and accomplished -

*A whopping 28 training sessions delivered to a range of education settings, parents and professionals on everything from handwriting to sensory circuits to developing interoception awareness and restricted diets and pica
* Acceptance to present my joint research with a music therapy colleague at the World Congress of Music Therapy in Italy
* Consultative OT input into 4 regular education settings (specialist and mainstream)
* 1 tribunal attended and a positive outcome achieved for the young person.
* Launch of the brand new approach to regulation the B.R.E.A D approach with my longterm colleague and Friend Ali Neal the Classroom OT with some fabulous feedback
* Privilege of meeting and working with some fantastic children and young people and staff and families

I can't wait to see what the rest of the academic year brings

04/02/2026

£88,000,000 is to be spent on solving the great foster care shortage. Really?

I’ve no doubt this £88,000,000 will be spent on sparkly recruitment campaigns promising a rewarding career- if only you have a spare room and ‘enough love’. Maybe the recruitment of marketing companies and extra staff without the correct training?

Well it would cost quite a lot less than that to train all Social Workers (including front line), in trauma informed practice, and fully and honestly prepare Foster Parents to care for traumatised children.

And while we’re at it, why not train the judiciary in the catastrophic effects of continuing abusive contact when the child is finally in a safe home. How destabilising is that? 

Then we would dramatically reduce levels of breakdowns and unplanned endings, (‘placement disruption’), and retain professional therapeutic foster parents with years of essential experience. (Like we already do in our fostering teams within The Centre of Excellence in Child Trauma).

Oh and while we are at it how about private health care for the whole family as a bare minimum?

Fostering families don’t leave because they want more money. They leave because when things get difficult they are unsupported, judged, blamed and alone. We did the research with Bristol University in 2016. We know how compassion fatigue debilitates the entire sector. And yet these findings are often still ignored and the tendency remains to act too late, offer too little, withdraw and blame. 

It really isn’t rocket science.

And here we still are, continuing to offer free trauma informed training for Social Workers, real life respect and partnership working with our fostering families AND the Therapeutic Fostering Assessment, which solves so many of these problems.

Www.coect.co.uk

15/11/2025

This is a fascinating article from The Independent raising awareness of DCD. Laura is passionate about spreading awareness around DCD and wrote a book all about the topic https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/dcd-dyspraxia-meaning-symptoms-adhd-b2862603.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/dcd-dyspraxia-meaning-symptoms-adhd-b2862603.html

New findings reveal how deeply developmental coordination disorder is impacting the lives of around 5 per cent of UK children