Author
Richard Seewald, PhD
Dr. Richard Seewald is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and a Research Associate at the National Centre for Audiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario. Prior to his recent retirement, Dr. Seewald held the Canada Research Chair in Childhood Hearing.
Dr. Seewald began his career in 1972 as a Clinical Audiologist at the Hearing and Speech Clinic located at the Sir Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He served as the Coordinator of Audiological Services from 1973 to 1976.
After completing his doctoral studies in Communication Sciences at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Seewald returned to Halifax in 1982 to serve on the faculty at the School of Human Communication Disorders. He has been a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada, since 1986.
For the past thirty-five years, Dr. Seewald’s work has focused on issues that pertain to the selection and fitting of amplification for infants and young children. He is known internationally for his work in developing the Desired Sensation Level (DSL) Method for pediatric hearing instrument fitting. The various procedures and prescriptive algorithms developed by Dr. Seewald and colleagues are now used to fit infants and young children with hearing aids throughout the world.
Dr. Seewald has received numerous awards for his work with children including the Honors of the Canadian Academy of Audiology and the Canadian Speech, Language and Hearing Association, an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Dalhousie University and the prestigious International Award in Hearing from the American Academy of Audiology for his pioneering work in the field of pediatric audiology. Most recently, Dr. Seewald’s long-term commitment to research and innovative solutions for children with hearing loss has been recognized with an award named in his honor by the Hear World Foundation.
