Dr. Susan Small

Susan Small is the Hamber Professor of Clinical Audiology and the Director of the Pediatric Audiology Laboratory in the School of Audiology and Speech Sciences at UBC. Dr. Small is also a clinical audiologist with extensive experience working with patients of all ages. Research in the Pediatric Audiology Laboratory focusses on furthering our understanding of the maturation of hearing and early speech perception through investigations of peripheral and central auditory processing in infancy and early childhood. One of her research interests is the early diagnosis of hearing loss using brainstem auditory evoked potentials and behavioural measures to air- and bone conducted stimuli. She also investigates objective measures, such as cortical auditory evoked potentials (e.g., acoustic change complex), to assess speech detectability and discrimination in infants with sensory and neural hearing losses. By addressing gaps in our knowledge in these areas, Dr. Small hopes to improve early diagnosis of hearing loss to support optimal speech, language and psychosocial development.

Research Interests

Furthering our understanding of the maturation of hearing and early speech perception through investigations of peripheral and central auditory processing in infancy and early childhood.

Early diagnosis of hearing loss using brainstem auditory evoked potentials and behavioural measures to air- and bone conducted stimuli.

Using cortical auditory evoked potentials (e.g., acoustic change complex), to assess speech detectability and discrimination in infants with sensory and neural hearing losses.