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Objectives/Hypothesis: This study assessed the effects of varying the electrode location on tonal discrimination and speech perception in Mandarin Chinese-speaking patients. Study Design: A controlled study with six experimental conditions. Methods: Seven Mandarin-speaking listeners who received a MED-EL cochlear implant (CI), ranging in age from 12.88 to 36.43 years (mean, 25.51 years), with an average of 5.28 years of device experience, participated this study. To evaluate the effects of electrode location, six experimental conditions each with the switch off at six different electrodes were designed. Identification tests of Mandarin lexical tones and words were performed. Results: Among experimental conditions with electrode lengths of 31, 23.8, and 16.6 mm, the CI subjects exhibited improved vowel and consonant identification in the condition of 31 mm, reflecting the apical location of electrodes. Specifically, the improvement was observed in the identification score for the vowel backness and height, as well as for the consonant place of articulation. Comparison among three settings with a same electrode length of 12.6 mm and the setting with stimulation to the midregion of the cochlea produces better words as well as the vowel and consonant identification compared with stimulation to basal and apical regions. However, no significant difference was observed for the lexical tone identification among conditions with different electrode location and stimulating region. Conclusions: Less mismatch of the frequency-to-place alignment may account for the improvement of word identification in conditions with electrodes coverage to more apical location; and in conditions where the mid-region of the cochlea were stimulated. Laryngoscope, 2012

This article identifies the cultural differences and language barriers faced by Taiwanese social workers when working with families of cross-border marriages, and discusses the importance of adopting a multicultural approach in social work practice in order to cater to the urgent needs of an increasingly culturally diverse society.

During World War II, some women from Taiwan, herein referred to as “comfort women,” were forced to go to the battlefield, not to fight, but to be used as sex slaves for the pleasure of Japanese soldiers. These women endured sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of mistreatment and left survivors with serious lifelong physical and psychological traumas. This study utilizes the framework of drama therapy and a hermeneutical research approach to examine the effects of drama therapy on women who have endured psychological and emotional abuse. It briefly examines the historical background of the issue and the role of drama therapy. Although the comfort women were victims of sexual abuse in a special historical situation, the focus of this work is not the historical aspect. Rather, it attempts to explore the role of drama therapy in the process of recovery from trauma. In this connection, this work does not discuss details of the complicated historical and other issues arising from these women’s experiences. Instead, it focuses on the psychotherapeutic aspects of their treatment and recovery, especially during their old age. Essentially, drama therapy is employed to create space for respondents to express their feelings about their experiences. Its process entails three stages, namely, warm-up, self-dialogue with the “past self,” and a healing stage. Through these stages, respondents were able to grieve for themselves, accept the trauma through self-dialogue with their “past selves” and develop the ability to self-heal, a first step towards recovery.

Cochlear implant (CI) recipients' performance of lexical tone identification and consonant recognition can be enhanced by providing greater spectral details.To evaluate the effects of increasing the number of total spectral channels on the lexical tone identification and consonant recognition by normally hearing listeners who are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese.Lexical tone identification and consonant recognition were measured in 15 Mandarin-speaking, normal-hearing (NH) listeners with varied numbers of total spectral channels (i.e. 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20, and 24), using acoustic simulations of CIs.The group of NH listeners' performance of lexical tone identification ranged from 44.53% to 66.60% with 4-24 spectral channels. The performance of tone identification between channels 4 and 16 remained similar; between channels 16 and 20 performance improved significantly. As regards consonant recognition, the NH listeners' overall accuracy ranged from 73.17% to 95.33% with 4-24 channels. Steady improvement in consonant recognition accuracy was observed as a function of increasing the spectral channels. With about 12-16 spectral channels, the NH listeners' overall accuracy in consonant recognition began to be comparable to their accuracy with the unprocessed stimuli.