Phoniatric Department of the 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University
and of General Faculty Hospital
The history of real Czech phoniatrics began at the Czech University in 1922 when young Miloslav Seeman, M.D. spent one year at prof. Gutzmann in Berlin and with prof. Froeschels in Vienna. He was one of the founders of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) and together with other colleagues he edited the first international journal of the new discipline in Europe, Folia Phoniatrica in 1947.
After the 2nd World War prof. Seeman made Prague the phoniatric focus worldwide. In the tradition of both the Berlin and the Vienna School, he established the Prague School of phoniatrics: clinical and scientific as well as educational dimensions in human communication disorders (language, speech, voice and hearing reflecting all aspects of input, processing, and output of messages of any kind, in the context of multiple intra/ and interindividual interrelations).
Prof. Seeman and his co-workers doc. Sedláčkova, prof. Sedlacek and prof. Novak were teachers for phoniatricians from east and west Europe. The high international reputation of Prague Phoniatric Department offered optimal conditions for establishing a new European association, the Union of the European Phoniatricians, UEP (1973). The profile of the Prague School of phoniatrics and the organization of the high standard of medical care for patients with communication disorders as realized in Czechoslovakia became the model for the policy of the UEP.
In the year 1967 the Phoniatric Department became a status of Charles University for phoniatrics from Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Health.
From the nineties the Phoniatric Department of the 1st Medical Faculty continued in the scientific research and in treatment in the field of communication disorders.
Research: developmental speech-language disorders, central auditory processing disorders, central auditory tests, electrophysiology in fluency disorders (EMG), acoustic analysis in speech and voice disorders, study of results of speech treatment in children with cleft palate
Treatment of voice, speech and hearing disorders: hearing and speech-language screening in risk children, children with specific language impairment, children with fluency disorders, children with cleft palate – centre for adult patients with CI (cochlear implant), treatment for aphasics – auditory centre for patients with hearing disorders (fitting of hearing aids) – voice care (professional voice problems, voice disorders)
