Phoniatrics is a medical specialisation that deals with voice, language, speech, hearing and swallowing diseases and disorders. Phoniatrics also encompasses pronunciation, reading and spelling difficulties, verbal fluency disorders (stuttering) or nasal speech in children, adolescents and adults. Head or neck tumour operations (e.g. after thyroid surgery) can cause disorders that affect the voice, speech or swallowing.
These are also part of the field of phoniatrics. Phoniatrics specialists work closely with other specialists in neurology and maxillofacial surgery and with paediatricians, educational experts and speech therapists. As well as providing treatment, phoniatrics specialists also work, for example, with actors, singers and presenters to prevent any strain on the voice that may cause disease (e.g. voice training).