Foundation

Belgrad, 1971, October 17-21
On the initiative of Peter Biesalski (Mainz, Germany), Dusan Cvejic (Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Gerhard Kittel (Erlangen, Germany), Oscar Schindler (Torino, Italy).

Goals
According to first by-laws fixed in 1977

The purposes of the Union are:
The promotion of the specialty of phoniatrics and the professional conditions of the phoniatricians, the scientific relations between the members and putting them into practice for the benefit of the medical care by medical doctors working in public health service as well as in private practice.
The consolidation of solidarity among these medical doctors.
The study of professional, social and ethic problems to be considered by the Union and the search for their solutions, in the interest of the phoniatricians and their patients.
And, in general, the improvement of the conditions of living and work for its members by all legal means.

To achieve these goals, the Union may in particular:
Use all means of information and investigation, and publish all kinds of reports or periodicals and brochures.
Organize or participate in the organization of professional courses.
Use all means, which are not forbidden by the laws or ordinances of the various European countries, in order to develop the specialty and the profession and to defend the professional interest of its members, either on its own or by supporting or joining a professional organization having the same goals.

The goals covered both professional and scientific aspects of phoniatrics, the medical specialty of communication disorders, and one of the main aspects was, in addition, to cope with the political conditions of the cold war, when Europe was strictly separated in East and West by the iron curtain. This specific goal was realized in a unique way. Based on a mutually trustful cooperation, political and financial arrangements could be achieved that enabled European phoniatricians from both sides to stay in close contact all over these difficult years after the second world war. The Union had a strong impact on the development of the specialty as well as for the training in phoniatrics not only within Europe, but - due to a fruitful cooperation with the International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (IFOS) - also in a worldwide scope.

At the UEP congress in Lucerne, September 1999, Oscar Schindler, Director of Audiology and Phoniatrics at the University of Torino, Italy, and one of the founders, addressed the members with a letter that was taken for an official statement on basic phoniatric positions and accepted unanimously by the General Assembly. This letter reads as follows:

Letter from Oskar Schindler, concerning goals, Lucerne, 1999:

To the members of the UEP
Leaving the active participation to the U.E.P. work, I would like to address to the members my goodbye and the expression of my personal satisfaction for the professional studies performed together and specially, being with P. Biesalski, G. Kittel and D. Cvejic, one of the four initiators of the U.E.P., I would like to remember the common spirit all of us had.
1. We had the sharp intention to formalize and concretize the relatively new medical science of communicology (not vocology, not audiology, not deglutology, not aphasiology or medical linguistics, not fluentology or any other partial field of the pathophysiology of the human communication).
2. We choose the name phoniatrics because it had a strong European tradition, but anyhow by that label we intended anything concerning any form or aspect of human communication and as a consequence, we wrote in the by-laws the formula understandable for those times of the fields of voice, speech, language and hearing (not formalizing other also intended chapters as general communication, non verbal communication, deglutition, learning, etc.).

I think that today we should be faithful to the original concepts in the interest
of the well established medical specialty of phoniatrics
of the clients having any kind of problems in the field of human communication.
Phoniatrics is nowadays formally recognized for example by IFOS (as demonstrated by the existence of a standing committee on Phoniatrics, chaired by Prof. A. Pruszewicz to whom I addressed in February 1999 the enclosed letter). We should pay attention that no medical person (no ENT specialist, no neurologist, no paedoneurologist, no psychiatrist, no physical doctor, etc.) has the competence of the entire field both of physiology and pathology of human communication, and it would be a pity that communicopathic clients should be cared by non medical figures (psychologists, linguists, sociologists, other).
We also have the responsibility to face the logopedes or logopedists or speech pathologists both
in their formation and
in their assistance as non-medical specialists in communicology.
In this spirit and with this thoughts I wish you all the best possible future as scientists, as Professionals, as persons.

Cordially yours, Oscar Schindler

Attached is a letter to Antoni Pruszewicz, Chairman of the Standing IFOS Committee on Phoniatrics and Voice Care, agreeing with his proposal of introducing pathophysiology of human communication as a priority problem of IFOS in the 21rst century and containing the following comments:
It should be explicit that the phoniatric competence is primarily in the knowledge and related skills of the normal functioning of some human abilities and specifically of the following:
voice
speech
language
non verbal (and verbal) communication
fluency of the abovementioned functions
swallowing
academic learning
interpersonal relationship
other

The knowledge-management of the abovementioned abilities implies also the knowledge- management of the related functions and specifically of the totality or of many functions of the following chapters:
sensoperception
practomotricity (but also secretions and excretions)
the central neuroendocrinoimmunitary processing (with special attention to the cognitivity and to the making decisions and to the so called “higher cortical functions”)
the social (and cultural) emotional interpersonal relationship
the general abilities
the patients’ history and territory

The nosological catalogue (not easily found in the I.C.D. 10 WHO classification) cannot be rigid, but could be divided in the following chapters:
voice disorders (dysphonias)
organic speech disorders (dyslalias)
comment of the editor (J. Wendler): the term “dyslalia” is widely used to describe developmental disorders of articulation, whilst organic speech disorders may be dysglossias (peripheral) or dysarthrias (central) – terminology under discussion
fluency disorders
aphasias
dysarthrias
retardations and dementiae (oligophrenias)
swallowing disorders
verbal disorders in the deaf (and related disabilities and problems)
learning disorders
sociocultural and emotional troubles
other

4. The phoniatric corpus doctrinale is not sufficiently considered and respected even in the last WHO draft for the ICIDH-2, which showed emphasize and encompass the educational and rehabilitation aspects.

Our standing committee could promote a commission on these problems and related consequences.

Very cordially,

Oskar Schindler

author: J. Wendler, Berlin