Postgraduate School of Audiology and Phoniatrics

Common training objectives (or common core)

Students must acquire the basics of clinical psychology, medical genetics, internal medicine, general surgery, neurology and paediatrics necessary for the completion of specialist training in the semiotics, diagnosis and treatment of pathologies pertaining to individual specialisations.
They must also acquire knowledge of the main laboratory tests on blood and tissues, radiology and neuroradiology imaging and their purpose and use in clinical and diagnostic assessment, prevention and monitoring of the structures and systems involved in anaesthesia and rehabilitation practices and in patients undergoing intensive, resuscitation and rehabilitation therapies.

Core training objectives

In-depth embryogenetic, morphological and structural knowledge and knowledge of the pathophysiology of organs and systems responsible for auditory and vestibular function and verbal production and perception, and fundamental concepts in physics and electronics in order to acquire the preparatory knowledge for a correct clinical-diagnostic workup and medical, surgical, prosthetic and rehabilitative therapy practice.

School-specific training objectives

Students must acquire knowledge of:
- mechanisms underlying auditory perception, linguistic development and learning in childhood and adolescence;
- theoretical basis of linguistic communication and human phonetics;
- functional and instrumental semeiotics of clinical methods in audiology and phoniatrics and theoretical bases of prevention, as well as their application in remediation of auditory communication disorders;
- medical, surgical, prosthetic and rehabilitative therapy for audiological, otologic and phoniatric disorders; sufficient skills to prescribe habilitation and rehabilitation programmes for correcting the most common disabilities induced by audiological and phoniatric disorders in children and adolescents, adults and the elderly;
- instrumental (phonometric) methods for noise pollution analysis and clinical and medical-legal assessment of acoustic trauma.

Related or additional objectives

Acquisition of basic concepts in the physiopathology, semeiology and clinical practice of medical and surgical specialties useful for diagnosing and treating pathologies that might share common areas of interest with audiology and phoniatrics.
Acquisition of concepts in biomedical technology, electrical and electronic measurements, bioengineering and computer processing necessary for functional diagnosis and prosthetic and rehabilitative methods in audiology and phoniatrics.
Acquisition of basic concepts for the medical-legal assessment of audiological and phonetic lesions and disorders, and concepts of professional ethics necessary for proper conduct as a professional specialist in audiology and phoniatrics.
Knowledge of the general principles of epidemiology and public healthcare in order to plan primary and secondary prevention interventions for human communication disorders.