To accomplish this she earned her Associate Degree in dental hygiene from Harcum College in 1993 and Bachelors Degree in Oral Health Promotion in 2016 from O’Hehir University.

She began practicing orofacial myology in 2016 and received her certification in orofacial myology (COM®) in 2019. Her education and certification were approved by the International Association of Orofacial Myology (IAOM).

Mari is always looking for additional educational opportunities to support her profession and help to raise awareness of orofacial myofunctional disorders.

She is a member of International Association of Orofacial Myology, American Dental Hygienists Association as well as American Academy of Physiological Medicine and Dentistry.

“I highly recommend working with Mari!  My son, now 13, had graduated from speech therapy when he was around 8 years old, but had remaining “slushy” sounding speech on his /s/ sounds as well as occasionally distorted /l, r/ during his conversational speech.  My husband and I still had a hard time understanding him at times which was frustrating for all of us. I am a pediatric speech language pathologist and wanted to focus on being my son’s mom instead of trying to constantly “fix” his speech. While I did refer him to be seen by other speech therapists (school based and private), my son knew how to slow down his rate of speech and speak clearly, passing all intelligibility tests. I wanted to find a way to increase his intelligibility in his normal (rapid) speech rate.  Fast forward to finding Mari. Mari was able to diagnose my son with a restricted posterior lingual frenulum as well as a tongue thrust swallow. Following her recommendations my son received a frenectomy and weekly orofacial myology sessions to retrain his tongue to correct his oral resting tongue posture, overall mobility and correct his swallow.  As a bonus, his lip strength increased and he can now blow balloons and he is no longer a messy eater.  I am very happy with his results. I believe my son now has a better functioning oral structure to speak clearly as his speech intelligibility has greatly increased.   Mari is passionate about her profession and is a wealth of knowledge, thank you Mari for everything you have done for my son!” ~ Jenica Andic, M.S. CCC-SLP