Help your patients breathe better, sleep better, and grow healthier… right from the dental chair.

Airway issues often hide in plain sight during routine dental visits. Mouth breathing. Crowded arches. Low tongue posture. Those tiny red flags can have massive impacts on sleep, behavior, and long-term oral health. When dental professionals understand what to look for and how to guide proper referrals, lives change.

This course will give you the confidence to do exactly that.

About the Course

Unlocking the Airway equips dental professionals with the foundational knowledge of myofunctional therapy and airway-focused care. Taught by renowned dental hygienist, airway educator and myofunctional therapist Tamara Thomas, this course explores how orofacial muscle function influences craniofacial development, airway health, dental stability, and systemic wellness.

Expect a practical, engaging learning experience packed with eye-opening clinical insight you can apply the very next day.

Objectives

You will learn how to:

1. Explain why Myofunctional Therapy plays an essential role in airway development and long-term dental health
2. Recognize the importance of nasal breathing for sleep, growth, and whole-body function
3. Identify harmful oral habits and assess their effects on facial development
4. Integrate airway considerations into orthodontic recommendations and case collaboration
5. Connect the dots between sleep-disordered breathing and orofacial dysfunction

Course Highlights

✔ The tongue’s influence on craniofacial growth and airway space
✔ How to identify and influence lip seal and nasal breathing success
✔ Red flags from habits like thumb sucking and pacifiers
✔ Basics of assessing tongue mobility and identifying functional limitations
✔ Pediatric sleep-disordered breathing: what dental professionals must look for
✔ How to screen for OMDs chairside in less than five minutes

Key Takeaways

After completing this course, you’ll walk away ready to:

✅ Screen patients for airway and myofunctional dysfunction
✅ Improve treatment outcomes and stability with airway-minded recommendations
✅ Collaborate confidently with key specialists: SLPs, ENTs, orthodontists, and myofunctional therapists
✅ Support nasal breathing and healthier muscle patterns in everyday patient care

Your patients already need this. You are positioned to lead the change.

Who Is This Course For?

This training is ideal for:

• Dental hygienists
• Dentists
• Dental assistants
• Pediatric dental teams
• Orthodontic practitioners

If your goal is to provide comprehensive, airway-informed dentistry, you belong in this course.

Meet Your Instructor

Tamara Thomas, RDH, CSOM, CH-OSE 

Tamara has spent years on the front lines of interdisciplinary care. She teaches dental teams how to spot dysfunction early, support functional growth, and elevate outcomes with airway-centered principles. Her teaching style blends real-world experience with simplified systems dental teams can immediately implement.

Her mission: empower dental professionals to help patients breathe and thrive.

Ready to transform the way you practice?

Airway-focused care is not the future. It’s what patients need today.