Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sandra Coulson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I was a public school speech therapist and did not feel it was working since many of my students were older and still had speech issues. Since I had a background in dance and gymnastics, I decided to start a practice using the muscles of the lips, tongue, mouth, jaw, and face. This intrigued me because I had worked for a dentist at age 13 and saw how many issues people had. So in 1969, I started a practice of orofacial myofunctional therapy to help dental patients. As I visited doctors, they all thought I was crazy. But then when they referred a few patients, they discovered that might not be true. Their patients pain stopped, their open bites closed, they became nasal breathers, and their postures improved. I am confident in the decisions I made leading up to this point. I have trained thousands of people and the field is now commanding some respect. Tenacity is my focus. Do not be afraid to be assertive in what you know to be true. Connect with likeminded people. And love what you do.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Orofacial myology is a science that studies the muscles of the mouth, face, and body posture. A familiar common disorder that is treated with OMT is tongue thrust, where the tongue rests against the front or side teeth during swallowing rather than resting on the palate. Myofunctional therapy can change the tongue rest posture from low in the mouth to the palate.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Honesty and good service. Caring for your patients and staff. Lift your team, do not push them down.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I absolutely would, I have been doing this for 54 years and I still work full time. This has become my passion. Helping people has always been my modality.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sandracoulson.com/