Social Paediatric Centre for Phoniatrics and Paediatric Audiology (SPC)

Dear parents,
Welcome to the only phoniatric-paediatric SPC in Rhineland-Palatinate. Since 01.09.2017, there has been an additional location at the University Medical Centre Mainz in cooperation with the Social Paediatric Centre of the State Hospital of the Rheinhessen-Fachklinik Mainz. As a result, children with chronic illnesses can now be cared for and medically treated not only in neuropaediatrics at the Centre for Paediatric Neurology (KiNZ), but also in the focus on communication disorders at the Phoniatric Paediatric Audiology SPC, as well as at the Centre for Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Treatment spectrum:

• Speech development, speech, voice and swallowing disorders
• Acquired and congenital hearing loss
• Hearing aid care/hearing aid fitting
• Hearing implant care/implant fitting
• AVWS (Auditory Processing and Perception Disorder)
• Mutism

Please note that child and adolescent psychiatric disorders (e.g. Autism, ADHD) are not diagnosed at our SPC.

Treatment team

• Interdisciplinary treatment team consists of:
• (Specialist) doctors for speech, voice and child hearing disorders
• (Specialist) doctors for ear, nose and throat medicine
• Speech therapists
• Specialised paediatric audiologists/paediatric acousticians
• Engineers
• Psychologists
• Perception therapists

This team works closely with

• Regional and supra-regional paediatric audiology counselling centres
• Early intervention for the hearing impaired and special needs teachers
• Regional and supra-regional speech therapy centres
• Speech therapy kindergartens/ schools
• Counselling centres for augmentative and alternative communication and autism
• Early Help Centres
• surrounding SPCs

Speech therapy
In speech therapy, all childhood speech, language and voice disorders are diagnosed; these are:

• Language development disorders
• Pronunciation disorders
• AVWS (Auditory Processing and
• Perception Disorder)
• Stuttering
• Twang
• Voice disorders
• Mutism

We also advise parents on language support, bilingual acquisition and other therapeutic measures.

Perception
The field of perception includes the diagnosis of visual perception and memory.

Psychological diagnostics and counselling
Children and adolescents are often presented with questions such as reading/spelling difficulties, clarification of non-verbal intelligence in the case of later diagnosed/treated hearing impairment or socialisation problems that arise due to hearing, speech and language disorders as well as other factors (hyperactivity, family problems, etc.). Psychological assessment can also be helpful in planning further action for the following disorders: psychogenic hearing disorder, elective mutism, stuttering, poltering and psychogenic voice disorder. The results and resulting measures are discussed in detail.

Paediatric audiology
The clinical tasks of paediatric audiology include carrying out hearing diagnostics in children with suspected hearing disorders. Hearing assessment is also important for children with speech development disorders or voice disorders. Another field of work is the examination of suspected auditory processing and perception disorders. If there is a hearing loss relevant to care, care with hearing aids or implantable hearing systems is initiated and accompanied. We perform hearing aid fittings almost exclusively on an inpatient basis. Regular audiological and technical checks of the hearing aids and hearing implants (cochlea, middle ear and bone conduction implants) are carried out.

How do you get an appointment?
If you would like to introduce your child (up to 18 years of age) to us, you will find an english version of our questionnaire for registering children at the SPC on our homepage. We would like to ask you to fill it out and return it to us by post, email or fax (for contact details, see back page).
Email:  kommunikation-hno@unimedizin-mainz.de
Once we have received your completed questionnaire, our team will contact you to schedule an appointment.

Please bring

• Medical reports (an examination by a paediatrician and/or ENT specialist is required before an examination in our phoniatric-paediatric SPC)
• Speech therapy reports
• Psychological investigation results
• Kindergarten reports or school reports / dictation books
• Maternity log
• Yellow screening booklet for children
• Vaccination certificate
• Referral slip from the paediatrician to the phoniatric-paediatric SPC