The Foundations in Manual Therapy: Voice and Swallowing Disorders curriculum guides the learner through a series of in-person and online courses, which will culminate in a certification program (coming soon). While some clinicians find that the Introductory class gives them sufficient skills to better meet the needs of their patients, others find that deepening their learning provides greater value and confidence. The available courses include in-person and online options, with both short and long-format online courses available. The Deeper Dives video courses give you small bites of information to apply in your practice. In contrast, the long-format courses supply you with sufficient skill to carry the work over into an entire treatment routine. For those seeking a more bespoke experience, private mentoring is available for all courses or to refine your existing skillset.

Manual therapy has been included in the literature impacting the speech-language pathologist (SLP) since at least 1980 (Aronson), and researched since 1993 (Roy and Leeper). Since that time, manual therapy has been expanded into dysphagia, oral motor-related issues, trismus, and many more areas. Though traditionally cited from various tissue pathology-based models, leaving a mildly uncertain path for determining the exact mechanisms of action underpinning the work, newer research has begun to view it as a multifactorial intervention, moving beyond the “issues-in-the-tissues” narratives. Manual therapy often appears awkward, and even outside the scope of practice of the SLP, to some. However, the availability of the breadth of current research should place it at the center of the SLP’s intervention choices. If you wish to look over some of the references used to support this work and training, please click here.

Communication is uniquely taught throughout the Foundations Seminar courses, in a manner seldom used in therapeutic environments. Traditionally, manual therapy is presented as a skill-based intervention, one that the therapist is expected to achieve mastery, making them capable of diagnostic and treatment decisions, based on the best available evidence. However, the patient's role within this model is typically one of subservience. They don’t know what we know, and easily defer decision-making to us. Yet, since the 1990s, a balancing of power has been set in place by evidence-based practice standards, with significant changes across the spectrum of healthcare…except in manual therapy. Manual therapy continues to be taught and enacted in a skewed power relationship arrangement. This needs to change. What we’ve accomplished is to set in place one model for power sharing 9shared decision-making), where the patient plays an equal role in clinical decision-making, rendering improvement in patient buy-in and ensuring relevance to the patient’s individual and unique needs and preferences. This model, situated side-by-side with a slow, relatively gentle form of treatment, allows the pressure to be lessened on the clinician to feel the need to be an expert, especially for those new to manual care.

Walt Fritz has been teaching manual therapy to SLPs (and related professions) since his first workshop in Chicago, Illinois, in 2013. Walt has taught thousands of SLPs worldwide. Please take some time to look over the many podcasts Walt has been a part of, the research list to support his work, and the recent paper he published, “The mechanism of action for laryngeal manual therapies: the need for an update.” Take some time to view the new Peer-to-Peer Mentoring video series to learn how other clinicians have adopted this approach to their practice. Lastly, feel free to contact Walt with questions.

Care to read what feedback seminar participants had to say about a recent class? You can read scans from a recent class here.