On The Other Hand Therapy (2025)

15/07/2025

I'm so excited to head to Lucky Fin Project Weekend in Troy, Michigan, July 18-20! 🎉

Each year at LFP weekend, I bring tools that help children and adults with upper limb differences access the world more comfortably

This year’s setup includes “try before you buy” items:

🩷 A unique “typing bar”: children and adults can explore various kinds of keyboards, different key layouts, and ergonomic mice and trackballs 💻⌨️🖱️

🩷 EaZyHold silicone straps: these enable the limb different side(s) to grasp everyday tools, like spoons, hairbrushes, jump ropes, or toothbrushes 🥄🪥

If you’re attending, come say hi and get my FREE LFP-exclusive handout bundle of OT tips and strategies!

Not attending? You can still order EaZyHold straps 15% off (use code ontheotherhand15) at eazyhold.com 🩷

Note: as an EazyHold affiliate, I receive a small commission on sales

02/07/2025

I haven’t shared on my page that my mom passed away recently. It’s been a tender and complicated time, full of love, grief, and reflection.

This letter poured out of me as I processed what it was like growing up with a visible difference in a time when we didn’t have the words, or maybe the space, to talk openly about pain — both children’s and parents’.

One of the biggest realizations of my adult years is that my mom both loved me fiercely and also understandably felt pain when I struggled with my upper limb difference. In response, I learned to withhold sharing anything painful for fear of hurting her. I wish I’d had the tools to tell her all of this.

A quick note that I am a huge fan of talk therapy! And, at the same time, I recognize that it works best as part of a holistic approach.

I am so grateful that we are living in a time when families have more support and connections within the limb difference community. I’m sharing this now in case it helps someone else have a different perspective or feel less alone with their own story. 💔

26/06/2025

🩷 Hi! A lot of people have joined recently, so I want to reintroduce myself.

🩷 I’m Laura Faye Clubok, an adult with a congenital hand difference, a pediatric occupational therapist (OT) with 25+ years of experience, and a mom to two grown children.

🩷 My goal: to offer realistic, empathetic tools for raising children with limb differences, grounded in lived experience and professional expertise.

🩷 I’m currently pursuing a post-professional OT doctorate to develop a prevention program to reduce overuse syndrome in children and teens with limb differences.

🩷 I’ve also presented nationally, co-led professional groups, and supported countless families through OT, workshops, and community events.

🩷 I turned out well, but I also faced some challenges that could have been prevented. Now I’m here to offer families what I wish my parents had: evidence-based supports, tools, and trusted guidance.

Helping Hands Foundation

08/05/2025

Mother's Day letter to my mom 🩷

I wrote this letter to express empathy for all my mother went through raising a child with a hand difference — and to thank her for all the support and love she gave me over the years.

I sent the letter to my mother last year, but last week I was able to share it with her in person 😭

For many years, I struggled to find language for things I felt and experienced as a child and later adult with a congenital upper limb difference. So much just wasn’t talked about back then — not in medical settings, not in schools, and certainly not in everyday conversations.

🥂 To my mom and to the many mothers supporting children with limb differences — I know sometimes your labor goes unseen. Thank you for all you do and provide: your boundless love, fierce advocacy, creative problem-solving, and unwavering support. 💓

💭 Adults with limb differences, have you written to your mother — even if you didn't share it? I found the process offered clarity, healing, and space to explore what I wish she knew.

Please feel free to share this post (keeping original formatting and attribution).

You can also find this letter and the first letter in this series, "Parent letter to a child with a limb difference," here: https://ontheotherhand.org/category/limb-difference/writings/.

Thank you to the organizations & individuals spreading limb difference awareness and community support 🩷

And wishing all moms Happy Mother's Day!💐

To see more of this content, follow and visit ontheotherhand.org.

Lucky Fin Project
Moxie Adaptive
LimbBo Foundation - Official Limb Difference Community Page
Limb Kind Foundation

29/04/2025

Celebrating Limb Loss & Limb Difference Awareness Month (LLLDAM) and OT Month! 🩷💙

As we reach the end of LLLDAM & OT month, I’m excited to highlight some of the most popular support, resources, and free tools available on my website — designed for families and therapists who care deeply about helping children with limb differences thrive.

At ontheotherhand.org, you’ll find:

☑️ tips for different life stages
☑️ downloadable handouts
☑️ practical ideas for home or therapy

Some resources are just for upper limb differences, while others support both upper and lower — there’s something for everyone.

Check it out and let me know which resource feels most helpful to you right now. 💡

And please tag a friend who’d love to see this information, too!

Lucky Fin Project Helping Hands (Symbrachydactyly) Helping Hands Foundation Parenting Children With Limb Differences LimbBo Foundation - Official Limb Difference Community Page Hands4OT

21/04/2025

PMG Final Recap 🎉 53 preschoolers, 23 college interns, so many great memories!

So proud of the amazing and hard working Preschool Motor Group (PMG) team and all the preschoolers we had the joy of working with this winter! 🌟

Watching the 23 dedicated interns grow in confidence, skill, and heart over the semester has been such a gift. Swipe through to read about their experiences! 🩷

Thank you to the incredible preschool staff and all 53 fabulous preschoolers for making this group so special 👏

Also, many thanks to the Leadership Corps who, besides all of their other behind-the-scenes jobs, helped take photos to document the preschoolers’ skill development: Amanda, Mackenzie, Nadia, and Olivia! Special thanks to Nadia for creating the IS post every week! 📸 💻🔥

11/04/2025

Still riding the high from AOTA Inspire 2025 in Philly! 🎉

Presenting a poster with Amber Jenkins, Sarah Tuberty, and Jerelyne Idica — three incredible OTs with upper limb differences — was an actual dream come true

✨ Before I met Sarah (the first OT I ever knew with a limb difference!) in 2019, I didn’t even know others like me were out there in the field. Since then, so much has happened!

✨ At Hands to Love’s 2023 Hand Camp, Jerelyne and I dreamed up the goal of presenting at AOTA

✨ A month later, after meeting through the Lucky Fin Project, Amber and I started the Practitioner Group for OTs with Upper Limb Differences — now nearly 30 members!

✨ And this year at the American Occupational Therapy Association's yearly conference, AOTA Inspire, we met or found out about four more OT practitioners and students with upper limb differences!

I’m so proud, grateful, and excited for what’s ahead. Representation matters, and we’re just getting started

Swipe to see our poster + access our handouts and references through the link in bio!

Many thanks to the families who shared photos of their children for our poster:
🩷 Angela Platt
🩷 Elaina Owen Simeona
🩷

Lucky Fin Project

07/04/2025

Winter 2025 PMG Week 10 Recap: graduation week! 🎓🎉

It's hard to believe that this was our last motor group! There were so many hugs and some tears, too! 😥

After the preschoolers engaged in the activities, we presented each one with an individualized certificate that celebrates their accomplishments over the past 10 sessions. Then they ran through a parachute tunnel with their intern buddy! 🙂

We’re so grateful we had the opportunity to work with 53 energetic preschoolers to develop their motor skills! The 23 Ohio State and Otterbein student interns did a fabulous job helping the preschoolers each week wtih the activities over the 10 week program. We saw huge improvements in the preschoolers’ balance, coordination, fine motor grasp patterns, focus, listening and following directions, motor planning, reflex maturation, tummy time tolerance, and willingness to try new activities 💪

The preschool years are the perfect time for children to develop their foundational motor skills. Many thanks for the partnerships that made this program possible:
🩷 Miriam Gisser, GE Preschool director
🩷 the amazingly dedicated Gan Ephraim Preschool teachers
🩷 all of the preschoolers and their families
🩷 the outstanding Ohio State University & Otterbein intern team!

31/03/2025

Preschool Motor Group (PMG) week 9 recap 🎉

Here are some of the interns’ reflections about how they have developed their skills during the program:

- “I feel that I have grown professionally in being able to engage with children in a teacher role compared to a friend role. In the past I have primarily worked with children on a more friendly level, so learning how to talk to them as an instructor has been interesting.”

- “I definitely feel that I have improved on building rapport with the children I am working with! I also feel so much more comfortable correcting their form.”

- “I feel like I grew more professionally as I gained a sense of what it is like to be an OT with children. This includes being observant, explaining activities clearly, incorporating imaginative play, and tying activities to what I learned.”

- “I feel more confident making sure that the children are giving 100% to each activity. I also have built a great relationship with all of the children and feel close to them.”

These interns will someday become amazing therapists! 🩷

Image descriptions: photos of the interns assisting the preschoolers with these fun activities:

1. Intern and child on stomach hammering golf tees into pool noodles
2. Intern assisting child bear walk on the balance beam
3. Two children lying tummy down cutting paper
4. Child standing balancing on the bosu ball while hitting a beach ball
5. Two children on scooter boards moving towards each other
6. An intern helping a child rock in the big red bowl
7. Child jumping forward then sideways
8. Child in tummy down position feeding small items to Mr. Tennis Ball
9. Child and intern in tummy down position inserting pegs into the Lite-Brite game
10. Child walking on the fitness walker
11. Intern and child doing hand movements to the “finger family song”

25/03/2025

Winter 2025 PMG Week 8 Recap! 🎉

This week’s theme was “Fine Motor skills" - the preschoolers engaged in 4 fine motor activities 🫶 and these new and repeated activities brought smiles & focus:

(1) Mr. Tennis Ball 🎾: The preschoolers fed Mr. Tennis ball “food” while lying tummy down. The preschoolers fed him just one item (buttons, marbles, mini pom poms) at a time with the fingertips of their dominant hand - even though he was super hungry (to work on controlled grasp and release)

(2) Popcorn/turtle tug-of-war 🍿: The preschoolers were pirates alternatively lying on their backs and tummies holding their “treasure” (a squishy ball) as tightly as they could so the intern couldn’t “steal” (pull it away) from them (to work on proprioceptive/”heavy work” processing)

(3) Lite Brite 💡: Positioned on their tummies inside a “mini fort” built under a table, the preschoolers created designs by inserting small pegs into the screen (to work on controlled grasp and release and tummy time tolerance)

(4) Big red bowl: The preschoolers loved rocking side to side navigating rocky waves in their “boat” (to work on vestibular processing and core control)!

(5) Hula hoop relay: We saw the most smiles this week during the hula hoop relay! Two preschoolers on opposite sides of a floor mat each picked up a small ball from a hula hoop and rolled to the middle, where they traded balls before rolling back in the opposite direction (to work on vestibular processing)

(6) Partner ball passing: Standing back to back, the preschoolers passed a ball from right to left (and vice versa!) across their bodies (to develop midline crossing, trunk rotation, and coordination)

10/03/2025

Winter 2025 PMG Week 7 Recap! 🎉

After a week off, the children and interns were so excited to get back into the motor group!

This week, we worked on vestibular development with many new stations:

- Bear crawling 🐻
- Rocking in the big red bowl
- Upside down bowling 🎳
- Partner ball passing
- Hitting a beach ball while face up on the Bosu ball

We can't wait to see how the preschoolers improve their motor skills and deepen their connections with the interns during the last 3 weeks of the PMG when we resume after spring break! 🩷

Image descriptions: photos of …
1. Intern and child decorating crowns
2. Child and intern manipulating clothespins while in high kneel position
3. Child doing upside down bowling
4. Intern and child high-fiving while child jumps off block
5. Two children passing a ball side to side
6. Child and intern assembling pop beads
7. Intern rocking child in the big red bowl
8. Child attaching animal clips to a box while tummy down on peanut ball
9. Child hitting beach ball while lying on back on the Bosu ball
10. Intern assisting child doing “bear walk”
11. Child playing mini Connect 4

24/02/2025

Winter 2025 PMG Week 6 Recap! 🎉

Today we are sharing more background information about the PMG program:

How is the PMG set up?

Each week, 3 classes of children rotate through 7 multi-sensory stations in groups of 2 or 3, with the same interns coaching and guiding them each week. They engage in 2-4 activities per station. After completing all of the 4 minute stations, the children move to the song “Shake Your Sillies Out” before starting the cool down activities. All together, the motor group lasts 35-40 minutes.

What kinds of activities do the preschoolers engage in and why?

The activities are designed to engage the three senses that tend to be under-stimulated in most school settings - but that also provide the greatest amount of sensory regulation: proprioceptive, tactile, and vestibular. The preschoolers also engage in activities that develop their balance, strengthen core muscles, inhibit immature movement patterns, foster eye-hand coordination, and allow them to practice top-down, left-right pre-writing motor plans.

Most importantly, the activities are fun, challenging, and social!

Image descriptions: photos of ...
1. Intern and child hole punching little pieces of paper while lying tummy down
2. Child crawling out of the end of the red tunnel
3. Child sitting up and tossing a ball into the bin that the intern is holding
4. Intern assisting the child logroll while holding on to a hula-hoop
5. Child practicing midline crossing by drawing “s” shapes on the easel
6. Intern and child in the “roly-poly” position
7. Two children lying tummy down playing Connect 4
8. Intern assisting a child jump in and out of the ropes layed on the ground
9. Child and intern taking the alligator clothespins off a clothes pin
10. Two children standing on balance boards throwing frog toys into a bin
11. Child jumping off of a block while the intern cheers them on
12. Child lying on back and blowing a feather to practice deep breathing during cool down

On The Other Hand Therapy

15/07/2025

02/07/2025

26/06/2025

08/05/2025

29/04/2025

21/04/2025

11/04/2025

07/04/2025

31/03/2025

25/03/2025

10/03/2025

24/02/2025

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