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The ability to understand speech in complex environments depends on the brain's ability to preserve the precise timing characteristics of the speech signal. Age-related declines in temporal processing may contribute to the older adult's experience of communication difficulty in challenging listening conditions. This study's purpose was to evaluate the effects of rate discrimination training on auditory temporal processing. A double-blind, randomized control design assigned 77 young normal-hearing, older normal-hearing, and older hearing-impaired listeners to one of two treatment groups: experimental (rate discrimination for 100- and 300-Hz pulse trains) and active control (tone detection in noise). All listeners were evaluated during pre- and post-training sessions using perceptual rate discrimination of 100-, 200-, 300-, and 400-Hz band-limited pulse trains and auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) to the same stimuli. Training generalization was evaluated using several temporal processing measures and sentence recognition tests that included time-compressed and reverberant speech stimuli. Results demonstrated a session × training group interaction for perceptual and ASSR testing to the trained frequencies (100 and 300 Hz), driven by greater improvements in the training group than in the active control group. Further, post-test rate discrimination of the older listeners reached levels that were equivalent to those of the younger listeners at pre-test. Generalization was observed in significant improvement in rate discrimination of untrained frequencies (200 and 400 Hz) and in correlations between performance changes in rate discrimination and sentence recognition of reverberant speech. Further, non-auditory inhibition/attention performance predicted training-related improvement in rate discrimination. Overall, the results demonstrate the potential for auditory training to partially restore temporal processing in older listeners and highlight the role of cognitive function in these gains.

Objective In Japan, the 57S and 67S single syllable lists have been used to test speech perception in cochlear implant (CI) users. However, due to advances in implants and processors, these lists have become too simple for CI users. In 2019, the Japan Otological Society created a new list, referred to as the iCI2004. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of these lists. Methods The Japanese single syllable speech perception tests, iCI2004, 57S, and 67S, were administered to 70 patients with CI users. The effects of single syllable characteristics on the test scores were examined. The type and number of single syllables used in each list were different. Therefore, we compared the scores for normal lists, shared single syllables, and non-shared single syllables. Results The average test results were 52% for iCI2004, 64% for 57S, and 77% for 67S; 67S performed the best, followed by 57S and iCI2004. The test results were significantly different. In a comparison of shared single syllables, the average scores were 58% for iCI2004 and 63% for 57S (45 pieces). A comparison of iCI2004 and 67S (17 pieces) showed that the average scores were 63% for iCI2004 and 75% for 67S. A comparison of 57S and 67S (20 pieces) showed that the average score for 57S was 70% and the average scored for 67S was 77%. No significant differences were detected under all conditions. Based on these results, the type of single syllable adopted affected the result. Conclusion The data gives no clear indication that the selection of the word table or presentation of sound pressure affects listening to sound for CI users in Japan. Based on the type and number of single syllables used, iCI2004 seems appropriate for evaluation of hearing in patients using CI.

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental movement characterized by abrupt, rapid, repetitive, and non-rhythmic tics. While TS is not life-threatening, such tics and comorbidities affect a children's physical and mental health and social interactions. Treatment is necessary when the children experience physical discomfort, functional dysfunction, and poor interpersonal interaction and mental health. Common management strategies for TS include psychological interventions and pharmacological treatment. Additionally, it is important to consider the individual needs of youths with TS and reassess the treatment outcomes and the need to receive continuous treatment regularly. This review summarizes the symptom management and nursing care measures for youths with TS. Understanding and listening to the healthcare problems of youths with TS can help providers develop healthcare interventions tailored to the youths' needs. Providing the youths with strategies to reduce the tics' interference with their learning outcomes and helping them develop strategies to cope with diverse interpersonal interactions at school are also important. Further, enhancing acceptance given by parents, teachers, and peers, as well as improving the general public's understanding of TS are important measures that promote the youths' social adjustment as well as their ability to coexist with TS.

We investigated the impact of hearing loss on the neural processing of speech. Using a forward modelling approach, we compared the neural responses to continuous speech of 14 adults with sensorineural hearing loss with those of age-matched normal-hearing peers. Compared with their normal-hearing peers, hearing-impaired listeners had increased neural tracking and delayed neural responses to continuous speech in quiet. The latency also increased with the degree of hearing loss. As speech understanding decreased, neural tracking decreased in both populations; however, a significantly different trend was observed for the latency of the neural responses. For normal-hearing listeners, the latency increased with increasing background noise level. However, for hearing-impaired listeners, this increase was not observed. Our results support the idea that the neural response latency indicates the efficiency of neural speech processing: More or different brain regions are involved in processing speech, which causes longer communication pathways in the brain. These longer communication pathways hamper the information integration among these brain regions, reflected in longer processing times. Altogether, this suggests decreased neural speech processing efficiency in HI listeners as more time and more or different brain regions are required to process speech. Our results suggest that this reduction in neural speech processing efficiency occurs gradually as hearing deteriorates. From our results, it is apparent that sound amplification does not solve hearing loss. Even when listening to speech in silence at a comfortable loudness, hearing-impaired listeners process speech less efficiently. ispartof: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE vol:55 issue:6 pages:1671-1690 ispartof: location:France status: published

With selective auditory attention (SAA), the human brain can cope with dynamic natural environments efficiently by prioritizing relevant auditory information while filtering out the rest. Auditory saliency describes how bottom-up auditory attention is attracted by local acoustic properties and plays an important role in SAA. In existing neuroimaging studies, the neural processing of auditory saliency has usually been explored via strictly controlled laboratory paradigms with abstract stimuli, overlooking the intrinsic functional interactions among spatially distributed brain networks underlying auditory saliency. In addition, it is unclear how auditory saliency related neural responses vary in auditory information in different semantic categories. In this study, we explored functional brain networks underlying auditory saliency via a multivariate brain decoding approach, in which naturalistic auditory excerpts in three semantic categories (pop music, classic music and speech) were used as stimuli in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our experimental results demonstrate that: 1) Dynamic auditory saliency can be decoded with relatively high accuracy from fMRI brain activities; 2) The neural processing of auditory saliency in different types of auditory information on the one hand shares some common brain regions (e.g., the primary auditory cortex), on the other hand recruits distinct brain regions/networks, e.g., the sensorimotor network and working memory network for classic music and the auditory-language network for speech. Our study provides complementary evidence to the neural processing of auditory saliency under naturalistic experience.

Objectives: To examine whether adolescents exceed recommended noise exposure limits when using personal listening devices (PLDs) and to investigate the relationship between objectively measured PLD use and hearing thresholds Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: This study was embedded within an ongoing prospective birth cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Data were collected from May 2017 to September 2019. Methods: A smartphone application was developed to measure daily noise exposure from PLDs. Listening habits were monitored among 314 adolescents with a mean age of 13 years 7 months (SD, 5 months), of whom 51.6% were male. Hearing acuity was measured by pure tone audiometry, and tympanometry was performed in both ears. Results: Within the study group, 2.2% adolescents exceeded the recommended daily noise dose (85 dBA as an 8-hour time-weighted average) among all days when the application was active and 9.9% when among only the listening days. No significant correlation was found between the daily noise dose from PLDs and pure tone thresholds. Conclusions: The majority of adolescents exhibited listening habits that could be considered safe. As noise-induced hearing loss develops slowly over time, it could be that the effects of PLD use on hearing are not evident yet in this young population with a relatively short duration of PLD use.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if classroom noise levels and perceived listening difficulty were related to fatigue reported by children with and without hearing loss. Method: Measures of classroom noise and reports of classroom listening difficulty were obtained from 79 children (ages 6–12 years) at two time points on two different school days. Forty-four children had mild to moderately severe hearing loss in at least one ear. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to evaluate if measured noise levels, perceived listening difficulty, hearing status, language abilities, or grade level would predict self-reported fatigue ratings measured using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Multidimensional Fatigue Scale. Results: Higher perceived listening difficulty was the only predictor variable that was associated with greater self-reported fatigue. Conclusions: Measured classroom noise levels showed no systematic relationship with fatigue ratings, suggesting that actual classroom noise levels do not contribute to increased reports of subjective fatigue. Instead, perceived challenges with listening appears to be an important factor for consideration in future work examining listening-related fatigue in children with and without hearing loss.

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine better- ear listening effect on spatial separation with the N1–P2 complex. Methods Twenty individuals with normal hearing participated in this study. The speech stimulus /ba/ was presented in front of the participant (0°). Continuous Speech Noise (5 dB signal-to-noise ratio) was presented either in front of the participant (0°), left-side (-90°), or right-side (+90°). N1- P2 complex has been recorded in quiet and three noisy conditions. Results There was a remarkable effect of noise direction on N1, P2 latencies. When the noise was separated from the stimulus, N1 and P2 latency increased in terms of when noise was co-located with the stimulus. There was no statistically significant difference in N1-P2 amplitudes between the stimulus-only and co-located condition. N1-P2 amplitude was increased when the noise came from the sides, according to the stimulus-only and co-located conditions. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that the latency shifts on N1-P2 complex explain cortical mechanisms of spatial separation in better-ear listening.

Recently, the patient-centered and comprehensive dental treatment are emphasized as the same important competency as traditional clinical skill training in dental education. It is a silver lining to reorganize current dental education and redefine the role of dentistry to dentist, patient, and society. Narrative medicine has emerged as a variant from medical humanities and takes inspiration from philosophy, literature, poetry, art, ethics, and social sciences. Narrative medicine adds humanistic care with empathy and listening to patients in daily care. In this article, we introduce the definition of narrative medicine, the concept of narrative dentistry, implementation of narrative medicine into dental education, and challenges in initiating narrative dentistry. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, it also affords the opportunity to initiate narrative medicine into dental education, dentist could emerge to heal patient holistically, but not simply eliminate oral diseases.

Background The RUBY randomised controlled trial demonstrated the benefit of proactive telephone peer support in promoting breastfeeding continuation in a setting with high breastfeeding initiation, where typically this is difficult to achieve. This paper describes the implementation and delivery of the peer support intervention with a focus on recruitment, training, and support of peer volunteers, and includes a description of the key components of the calls. Methods Data collection occurred between December 2012 and June 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. Volunteers completed enrolment forms at the training session and recorded data related to each call in a Call Log maintained for each mother supported. Data were summarised using descriptive statistics and responses to open-ended questions analysed using content analysis. Results A total of 693 women expressed interest in the peer support role, with 246 completing training, that is, 95% of whom supported at least one mother. Each supported a mean of two mothers (range 1 to 11). Training session topics included respecting individual values, using positive language, confidence building, active listening, empathetic support, and normal baby behaviour. There were 518 periods of support where at least one call was made between a volunteer and a mother to whom she was allocated. Of the 518 periods of support, 359 Call Logs (69%) were returned. The 359 call logs recorded a total of 2398 calls between peers and mothers. Call length median duration was 12 min (range 1 to 111 min). Volunteers perceived the most valued aspects of the calls were the provsion of ‘general emotional support’ (51%) and ‘general information/discussion about breastfeeding’ (44%). During the first call, mothers raised questions about ‘nipple pain/ damage’ (24%) and 'general breastfeeding information’ (23%). At ≥12 weeks postpartum, issues raised related to ‘normal infant behaviour’ (22%), ‘feed frequency’ (16%), and ‘general breastfeeding information’ (15%). Volunteers referred women to other resources during 28% of calls, most commonly to the Australian Breastfeeding Association. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that the RUBY trial was feasible and sustainable in terms of recruiting volunteers who were willing to participate in training and who proceeded to provide peer support. Call content was responsive to the evolving breastfeeding information needs of mothers and the provision of emotional support was perceived by volunteers to be important. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN 12612001024831.

Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhea among children worldwide. In 2017, Italy included rotavirus vaccination in its National Immunization Program. The use of social media monitoring, an efficient tool to understand vaccine hesitancy, has increased in recent years; however, only a few examples of such monitoring are available for Italy. Present study analyzed content on online sources, including social media, to identify factors contributing to Italian parents' decisions to vaccinate or not their children against rotavirus. Blogmeter Suite was used to search and analyze conversations related to rotavirus in Italian on online sources during 2020. These data were compared with data from 2019. There were 2250 mentions of "rotavirus" recorded; 1080 were related to the rotavirus vaccine. Terms and hashtags used were similar in both years. Facebook was the main source of influence, Instagram dominated the engagement (the sum of interactions related to a post), and Google Trends showed a 5-year upward trend in searches for rotavirus vaccine. Of 1270 sentiment opinions, 60.7% were negative. More parents were familiar with the disease and the vaccine in 2020 compared with 2019. Pediatricians were the most influential healthcare professionals (59.2% of mentions), followed by vaccination staff (33.4%). The most relevant factors for vaccine hesitancy were fear of adverse events, concerns about the vaccination schedule, and COVID-19. Present study represents the first web listening analysis of online discussions about rotavirus. The results can be used to inform targeted communication to counteract misinformation and raise awareness about rotavirus vaccination among parents.

A young man hospitalized in severe biventricular heart failure, awaiting his third heart transplant, held a wish that he had not expressed to any of the myriad of clinicians involved in his care. It was only at the suggestion of his mother that he, in the hope of having his wish fulfilled, shared his wish with a medical student on the Palliative Care service. Through years of navigating the stressful complexities of her son’s medical care, this mother had encountered Palliative care and had come to expect of palliative care, a compassionate presence, compassionate listening, and a compassionate response.

ObjectivesIn the personalisation of hearing aid fittings, gain is often adjusted to suit patient preferences using live speech. When using brief sentences as stimuli, the minimum gain adjustments necessary to elicit consistent preferences (‘preference thresholds’) were previously found to be much greater than typical adjustments in current practice. The current study examined the role of duration on preference thresholds.DesignParticipants heard 2, 4 and 6-s segments of a continuous monologue presented successively in pairs. The first segment of each pair was presented at each individual’s real-ear or prescribed gain. The second segment was presented with a ±0-12 dB gain adjustment in one of three frequency bands. Participants judged whether the second was “better”, “worse” or “no different” from the first.Study SampleTwenty-nine adults, all with hearing-aid experience.ResultsThe minimum gain adjustments needed to elicit “better” or “worse” judgments decreased with increasing duration for most adjustments. Inter-participant agreement and intra-participant reliability increased with increasing duration up to 4 s, then remained stable.ConclusionsProviding longer stimuli improves the likelihood of patients providing reliable judgments of hearing-aid gain adjustments, but the effect is limited, and alternative fitting methods may be more viable for effective hearing-aid personalisation.

Mathematical calculation usually requires sustained attention to manipulate numbers in the mind, while listening to light music has a relaxing effect on the brain. The differences in the corresponding brain functional network topologies underlying these behaviors remain rarely known. Here, we systematically examined the brain dynamics of four behaviors (resting with eyes closed and eyes open, tasks of music listening and mental calculation) using 64-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings and graph theory analysis. We developed static and dynamic minimum spanning tree (MST) analysis method and demonstrated that the brain network topology under mental calculation is a more line-like structure with less tree hierarchy and leaf fraction; however, the hub regions, which are mainly located in the frontal, temporal and parietal regions, grow more stable over time. In contrast, music-listening drives the brain to exhibit a highly rich network of star structure, and the hub regions are mainly located in the posterior regions. We then adopted the dynamic dissimilarity of different MSTs over time based on the graph Laplacian and revealed low dissimilarity during mental calculation. These results suggest that the human brain functional connectivity of individuals has unique dynamic diversity and flexibility under various behaviors. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43657-021-00027-w.

Objective This study investigated factors influencing surgical decision-making (DM) to treat neurogenic bladder and bowel (NBB) dysfunction for veterans and civilians with spinal cord injury (SCI) in the United States (US). Design Semi-structured interviews complemented by survey measures. Setting Community-dwelling participants who received treatment at a major Midwestern US medical system, a nearby Veterans Affairs (VA) facility, and other VA sites around the US. Participants Eighteen participants with SCI who underwent surgeries; completed semi-structured interviews and survey measures. Interventions Not applicable. Outcomes measures Semi-structured interviews were coded to reflect factors, DM enactment, and outcomes, including surgery satisfaction and quality of life (QOL). Quantitative measures included COMRADE, Ways of Coping Questionnaire, Bladder and Bowel Treatment Inventory, PROMIS Global Health and Cognitive Abilities scales, and SCI-QOL Bladder and Bowel short form. Results Themes identified about factors influencing DM included: recurrent symptoms and complications; balancing dissatisfaction with NBB management against surgery risks; achieving independence and life style adjustments; participant's driven solutions; support and guidance and trust in doctors; and access and barriers to DM. DM enactment varied across surgeries and individuals, revealing no clear patterns. Most participants were satisfied with the surgery outcomes. Some differences in demographics were observed between veterans and civilians. Conclusions We have attempted to illustrate the process of NBB DM as individuals move from factors to enactment to outcomes. Attending to the complexity of the DM process through careful listening and clear communication will allow clinicians to better assist patients in making surgical decisions about NBB management.

Research on college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy has become a hot issue and attracts much concern of scholars and experts in the second language acquisition. Some researches prove that listening anxiety is universal and pervasive in the language learning process and listening strategy plays a crucial role in lowering or reducing college students’ listening anxiety and improving their listening ability. In order to study college students’ listening anxiety, listening strategy and the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy, an empirical study is carried out on the 2020th English majors. This study combines quantitative method and qualitative method and adopts “Questionnaire about English listening strategy” and “Questionnaire about English listening anxiety”. The study reveals that: firstly, among the listening strategy, meta-cognitive strategy is the most frequent strategy that college students use; cognitive strategy is more frequent than social or affective strategy used by college students; social or affective strategy is the least frequent strategy that college students use. Secondly, although college students suffer from universal listening anxiety, the level of listening anxiety is low. Thirdly, the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy is not significant. It also means that listening anxiety is not related to social or affective strategy, related to meta-cognitive strategy. This study aims to help Chinese college educators and students to realize the effect of listening anxiety and the appropriate use of listening strategy.

Public address (PA) announcements are widely used, but noise and reverberation can render them unintelligible, and such an environment tends to degrade speech intelligibility more for older adults (OAs) than for younger adults (YAs). Furthermore, in an emergency, textual information available to the public may not coincide with PA announcements, and this mismatch may also contribute to degrading the intelligibility of the announcement. In this study, speech spoken in a normal or urgent style and preceded by congruent or incongruent text was presented to OA participants to investigate the effects of these parameters on word intelligibility in the presence of babble noise and reverberation. This study also investigated age-related differences between OAs and YAs using the same stimuli. The results showed that, while YAs performed better than OAs, the effect of urgent speech did not significantly differ with age. Urgent speech was more intelligible than normal speech, and the congruent text condition was more intelligible than the incongruent and no text conditions. An exploratory analysis showed that urgent speech improved speech intelligibility for OAs when congruent text was available, but not when absent or incongruent. Without congruent information, this listening test may have been too demanding for OAs, who could have had more difficulty processing the fixed timeline of the listening test, the faster urgent speech relative to normal speech, and informational masking because of the slowing of cognitive processing with age. A correlation was found between the average word correct rate for urgent speech and average audiometric thresholds; on the other hand, increased fundamental frequencies in urgent compared with normal speech was not the main predictor of the intelligibility of urgent speech among the OAs. The congruent text benefit in urgent speech was larger for OAs than for YAs in the previous study using the same stimuli. This demonstrates that compared with YAs, OAs may rely more on supportive prior knowledge or receive more benefit from the preceding text in challenging listening environments. These findings imply that age-related cognitive decline may explain the difficulties in speech perception in the presence of noise and reverberation among OAs; however, no definitive conclusions can be drawn. These results suggest that simple combinations of speaking style and textual information affect the intelligibility of emergency PA announcements among OAs, and thus, audiovisual congruence should be considered when announcements are made in public spaces.

Misophonia involves a strong emotional response to certain sounds and can cause significant distress and functional impairment. The aim of this study was to present and psychometrically evaluate a new, multidimensional measure of misophonia, the S-Five. The study also aimed to present and test a supplementary tool, a checklist of triggers that measure the nature and intensity of reactions. The stages of development for the measure are described. Psychometric testing on the final version of the tool was conducted using a sample of 828 individuals who identified with having misophonia. Analyses included factor structure assessment, measurement invariance testing, reliability (test–retest and internal consistency), and (concurrent) convergent validity assessment. Five factors emerged in the S-Five as dimensions of the experience of misophonia: internalising appraisals, externalising appraisals, sense of emotional threat, outbursts, and impact. No measurement bias was identified with respect to gender and age. All reliability and validity indices were satisfactory. The S-Five is a multidimensional measurement scale with satisfactory psychometric properties and will be a valuable tool for improving understanding of misophonia in research and clinical settings.

Purpose To create a curriculum innovation for early preclinical medical students to explore personal perspectives by listening to and learning from the lived experience of community-living older adults. Method Tell Me Your Story (TMYS) paired first-year medical students (MS1s) with community-dwelling older adult partners (OAPs) residing in the independent living portion of a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) for a half-day educational experience. MS1s conducted 1-hour semi-structured interviews with their OAP and then formed small groups with geriatric faculty members to explore experiences and views that were either reinforced or challenged. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of this exercise using post-activity surveys. A mixed-methods analysis of 7 years of data (2013-2019) was conducted. Results TMYS had 1251 MS1 participants from 2013 to 2019. Students completed 1052 surveys for a response rate of 84%. During the semi-structured interview with OAP, the frequency of issues discussed included relationships (94%), professionalism/art of medicine (91%), healthcare accessibility (83%), death/dying/grieving/loss (72%), nutrition (69%), ethics (64%), and cultural competence (61%). Exactly 97% (n = 1023) responded that the overall organization was "good, very good or excellent." The most prominent themes identified by student responses highlighted person-centered care, patient perspective, life experience/personal stories, and doctor-patient relationship. Fifty-three faculty members completed the post-program survey. Exactly 100% (53/53) rated the quality of this exercise as an educational experience high. Conclusion TMYS was highly valued by students and provided an important experiential learning activity in preclinical medical education. Themes related to person-centered care emerged from the intervention.

Purpose Listening in healthcare practice is often overlooked. This article addresses the misconception that listening in rehabilitation and healthcare is a simple skill, and proposes a conceptual framework of effective listening in healthcare conversations, based on conceptualizations, attributes, and outcomes associated with listening. Method A critical review was conducted, encompassing literature on listening in everyday and healthcare conversations. Articles were retrieved through database and hand searching. Results Although various types of listening have been proposed, they share common attributes, including being attentive, emotionally involved, and non-judgmental. A conceptual framework is proposed in which listening in healthcare is seen as a relational process fostered by the 'engaged and person-centred listener', leading to relational outcomes (e.g., mutual engagement, collaboration) and client-specific outcomes. Listening in healthcare conversations can be difficult due to situational conditions and the level of self-regulation required. Conclusions Effective listening in healthcare differs from everyday listening with respect to its attributes, intentionality, and challenges. In healthcare, listening is essential to mutual engagement and other relational outcomes that mobilize the client towards pursuing goals. There is a need for greater understanding of the centrality and challenges to effective listening in healthcare conversations. Implications for rehabilitation practice are discussed.Implications for RehabilitationListening in rehabilitation conversations is a core skill or advanced competency-not a 'soft' skill with little effect on client outcomes.Effective listening is essential to mutual understanding, engagement, relationship building, and collaboration, which mobilize the client towards pursing goals in rehabilitation.Listening effectively in rehabilitation conversations involves deliberately adopting a person-centred perspective.Effective rehabilitation professionals have several listening intentions in mind in addition to understanding, including engaging the other person in the therapy session, building relationship, and collaborating.Rehabilitation professionals can deliberately adopt the intention to be an "engaged and person-centred listener" who is with and for the client.

Objective The aim of this study was to assess to what extent simultaneously-obtained measures of listening effort (task-evoked pupil dilation, verbal response time [RT], and self-rating) could be sensitive to auditory and cognitive manipulations in a speech perception task. The study also aimed to explore the possible relationship between RT and pupil dilation. Design A within-group design was adopted. All participants were administered the Matrix Sentence Test in 12 conditions (signal-to-noise ratios [SNR] of -3, -6, -9 dB; attentional resources focussed vs divided; spatial priors present vs absent). Study sample Twenty-four normal-hearing adults, 20-41 years old (M = 23.5), were recruited in the study. Results A significant effect of the SNR was found for all measures. However, pupil dilation discriminated only partially between the SNRs. Neither of the cognitive manipulations were effective in modulating the measures. No relationship emerged between pupil dilation, RT and self-ratings. Conclusions RT, pupil dilation, and self-ratings can be obtained simultaneously when administering speech perception tasks, even though some limitations remain related to the absence of a retention period after the listening phase. The sensitivity of the three measures to changes in the auditory environment differs. RTs and self-ratings proved most sensitive to changes in SNR.

Older adults with hearing loss experience significant difficulties understanding speech in noise, perhaps due in part to limited benefit from supporting executive functions that enable the use of environmental cues signaling changes in listening conditions. Here we examined the degree to which 41 older adults (60.56–86.25 years) exhibited cortical responses to informative listening difficulty cues that communicated the listening difficulty for each trial compared to neutral cues that were uninformative of listening difficulty. Word recognition was significantly higher for informative compared to uninformative cues in a + 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) condition, and response latencies were significantly shorter for informative cues in the + 10 dB SNR and the more-challenging + 2 dB SNR conditions. Informative cues were associated with elevated blood oxygenation level-dependent contrast in visual and parietal cortex. A cue–SNR interaction effect was observed in the cingulo-opercular (CO) network, such that activity only differed between SNR conditions when an informative cue was presented. That is, participants used the informative cues to prepare for changes in listening difficulty from one trial to the next. This cue–SNR interaction effect was driven by older adults with more low-frequency hearing loss and was not observed for those with more high-frequency hearing loss, poorer set-shifting task performance, and lower frontal operculum gray matter volume. These results suggest that proactive strategies for engaging CO adaptive control may be important for older adults with high-frequency hearing loss to optimize speech recognition in changing and challenging listening conditions.

Background and Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to validate the performance and diagnostic efficacy of the Korean digits-in-noise (K-DIN) test in comparison to the Korean speech perception-in-noise (K-SPIN) test, which is the representative speech-in-noise test in clinical practice.Subjects and Methods: Twenty-seven subjects (15 normal-hearing and 12 hearing-impaired listeners) participated. The recorded Korean 0-9 digits were used to form quasirandom digit triplets; 50 target digit triplets were presented at the most comfortable level of each subject while presenting speech-shaped background noise at various levels of signal-to-noise ratios (-12.5, -10, -5, or +5 dB). Subjects were then instructed to listen to both target and noise masker unilaterally and bilaterally through a headphone. K-SPIN test was also conducted using the same procedure as the K-DIN. After calculating their percent correct responses, K-DIN and K-SPIN results were compared using a Pearson-correlation test.Results: Results showed a statistically significant correlation between K-DIN and K-SPIN in all hearing conditions (left: r=0.814, p

Zhidan Wang,1 Alishba Hania,2 Asma Muzaffar,2 Saadia Zia2 1School of Education Science, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Psychology, Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan, PakistanCorrespondence: Alishba Hania Email alishba_hania92@hotmail.comPurpose: Leading a normal life and managing daily psychological or physical stress is hard for everybody but when a person is diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) during a widespread pandemic, the battle is inescapable. This research aimed to explore some positive dimensions that can lessen the adversities of these women.Design and Methods: We assessed all 200 cases of GDM who were registered in the maternity wards of the government and private hospitals of South Punjab, Pakistan. Respondents were diagnosed with GDM during the first wave of COVID-19. Post-traumatic growth (PTG) inventory, Family environment scale, and Partner supportive communication (PSC) scale were used. SEM and moderation analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized relationship among the variables.Results: Result showed that elicitation of thoughts and feelings (β = 0.109, t-value = 3.501, p = 0.001), effective listening (β = − 0.144, t-value = 1.928, p = 0.054), and communication towards partner (β = − 0.209, t-value = 4.850, p = 0.005) significantly moderated the relationship between family environment and post traumatic growth.Practical Implications: This research is beneficial for health practitioners because the trauma of being diagnosed with such a disease can be alleviated by the role of family environment and PSC.Keywords: post-traumatic growth, partner supportive communication, family environment, gestational diabetes mellitus, GDM, PSC, PTG

Background Clinical errors are one of the challenges of health care in different countries, and obtaining accurate statistics regarding clinical errors in most countries is a difficult process which varies from one study to another. The current study was conducted to identify barriers to reporting clinical errors in the operating theatre and the intensive care unit of a university hospital. Methods This qualitative study was conducted in the operating theatre and intensive care unit of a university hospital. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with health care staff, senior doctors, and surgical assistants. Data analysis was carried out through listening to the recorded interviews and developing transcripts of the interviews. Meaning units were identified and codified based on the type of discussion. Then, codes which had a common concept were grouped under one category. Finally, the codes and designated categories were analysed, discussed and confirmed by a panel of four experts of qualitative content analysis, and the main existing problems were identified and derived. Results Barriers to reporting clinical errors were extracted in two themes: individual problems and organizational problems. Individual problems included 4 categories and 12 codes and organizational problems included 6 categories and 17 codes. The results showed that in the majority of cases, nurses expressed their desire to change the current prevailing attitudes in the workplace while doctors expected the officials to implement reform policies regarding clinical errors in university hospitals. Conclusion In order to alleviate the barriers to reporting clinical errors, both individual and organizational problems should be addressed and resolved. At an individual level, training nursing and medical teams on error recognition is recommended. In order to solve organizational problems, on the other hand, the process of reporting clinical errors should be improved as far as the nursing team is concerned, but when it comes to the medical team, addressing legal loopholes should be given full consideration.

Research suggests a relationship between auditory distraction (such as environmental noises or a vocal cell phone conversation) and a decreased ability to detect and localize approaching vehicles. What is unclear is whether auditory vehicle perception is impacted more by distractions reliant on listening or distractions reliant on speaking (analogous to the two components of a vocal cell phone conversation). In two experiments, adult participants listened for approaching vehicle noises and while performing listening- and speaking-based secondary tasks. Participants were tasked with identifying when they first detect an approaching vehicle and when they no longer felt safe to cross in front of the approaching vehicle. For both experiments, the speaking task resulted in significantly later detection of approaching vehicles and riskier crossing thresholds than in the no-distraction and listening conditions. The listening secondary task significantly differed from the control condition in experiment 1, but not experiment 2. Overall, our results suggest auditory distractions, particularly those reliant on speaking, negatively impact pedestrian safety in situations where visual information is minimal. Results may provide guidance for future research and policy about the safety impacts of secondary tasks.

Background Open streets events, where roads are temporarily closed to motorized vehicles, can provide safe spaces for physical activity (PA) and become sustainable community infrastructure. Since 2016, we have collaborated with a rural community to implement an open streets event, named ciclovía. In 2019, ciclovía was adopted as a community-wide program. This paper describes the process of building and progressing a ciclovía from a research intervention to a community-adopted program and participation of a rural community in ciclovía. Methods We used community-based participatory research to foster bidirectional learning on how to optimize the content and implementation of ciclovía to be feasible and acceptable for rural communities. The community-academic partnership focused on: 1) understanding the science of ciclovía; 2) learning the implementation process; 3) creating tools to facilitate planning, implementation, and evaluation of ciclovía; and 4) developing transition steps from a research intervention to a community-adopted program. Results The progression of the research intervention to community adoption spanned 2 years. First, the partnership met quarterly to discuss the science of ciclovía, its utility, and its adaptation for rural communities. Second, the partnership studied processes that facilitated ciclovía implementation. Third, the partnership created the ciclovía planning guide and tools for communities to establish their own ciclovía. The guide included forming a planning committee, setting meeting and communication plans, marketing and promotion, and selecting evaluation tools. Fourth, the transition steps from research intervention to community adoption included creating roles and responsibilities, implementing ciclovía using the planning guide, and convening listening sessions for improvement on implementation. Community attendance at ciclovía doubled from 189 individuals (126 children and 63 adults) when it was a research intervention to 394 individuals (277 children and 117 adults) when it was a community program. Conclusions The progression from a research intervention to a community-adopted program encompasses multiple steps that involve bidirectional learning and partnership with the community. Lessons learned from this study are integrated into a disseminatable ciclovía planning guide.

Objective: to analyze available publications assessing efficacy of the Mozart effect in patients with epilepsy.Material and methods. A search for scientific publications has been performed in PubMed, Scopus and eLibrary databases by retrieving inquiries "Mozart effect" and "epilepsy" in paper title, resume and keywords. As a result, 18 studies matching inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected. The data obtained were systematized into four categories: 1) whether a single listening of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K.448 affect interictal epileptiform activity (IEA) immediately during an event; 2) whether a repeated (course) of listening K.448 affect IEA; 3) is there a delayed effect on IEA after a single or repeated listening of K.448; 4) how does the Mozart effect act on rate of epileptic seizures during ongoing therapy course of listening K.448 or afterwards.Results. It was found that therapy with Mozart’s sonata K.448 may lower IEA index during a single listening of this musical composition and shortly afterwards. A lowered IEA index during a course listening of K.448 lasting for some time afterwards may be observed as well. Moreover, a repeated listening of K.448 may reduce rate of epileptic seizures within entire music course.Conclusion. The analysis revealed that there are currently some reasons to consider the Mozart effect as a means of neurostimulation impacting on rate of epileptic seizures and IEA.

Aim To explore the views of an international sample of nursing and midwifery managers concerning attributes that they associate with compassionate management. Method A cross-sectional online survey. Using a snowballing sampling method, 1217 responses were collected from nursing and midwifery managers in 17 countries. A total of complete 933 responses to a question related to which actions and behaviours indicated that a manager was exercising compassionate leadership were analysed for this paper. First, content analysis of the responses was conducted, and second, a relative distribution of the identified themes for the overall sample and for each participating country was calculated. Results Six main themes were identified describing the attributes of a compassionate leader: (1) Virtuous support, (2) Communication, (3) Personal virtues of the manager, (4) Participatory communication, (5) Growth/flourishing/ nurturing and (6) Team cohesion. The first three themes mentioned above collectively accounted for 63% of the responses, and can therefore be considered to be the most important characteristics of compassionate management behaviour. Conclusion The key indicators of compassionate management in nursing and midwifery which were identified emphasise approachability, active and sensitive listening, sympathetic responses to staff members' difficulties (especially concerning child and other caring responsibilities), active support of and advocacy for the staff team and active problem solving and conflict resolution. While there were differences between the countries' views on compassionate healthcare management, some themes were widely represented among different countries' responses, which suggest key indicators of compassionate management that apply across cultures. lead of Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health at Middlesex University, London, UK This study received no external funding and was conducted on a voluntary basis, under the lead of Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health at Middlesex University, London, UK.

This study was an initial investigation of important areas of interest within the literature on transgender and gender diverse students, namely psychological health, well-being and campus climate for transgender and gender diverse students in young adulthood. What is unique is that data were obtained from Christian transgender and gender diverse students attending Christian college and universities. A sample of 31 undergraduate transgender students at nine Christian institutions in which staff were affiliated with the Association for Christians in Student Development completed an online survey. Participants reported high levels of religiosity, diversity in their attitudes about gender identity, negative perceptions of campus climate, lower levels of social support for gender identity than in general, moderate to high levels of psychological distress, and low to moderate levels of psychological well-being.

OBJECTIVES Experiences can be strongly influenced by expectations. In hearing healthcare, previous studies have shown that descriptions of hearing aids or contextual factors during the hearing aid fitting process can change subjective and even objective outcomes with hearing aids via the placebo effect. Personality factors have also been shown to affect susceptibility to placebo effects. The purposes of the present study were to (a) investigate the effects of communicating narratives designed to foster positive, negative, or neutral expectations about hearing aids on short-term patient outcomes, and (b) to determine if the degree to which the narratives affected end-user outcomes could be predicted by personality factors. DESIGN Nineteen adults between the ages of 54 and 81 (mean age = 68.5, SD = 8.9) had 3 separate research appointments, each exposing them to a different narrative condition: positive, negative, or neutral. the appointment was designed to look and feel like a "traditional" hearing aid fitting appointment, during which the experimenter introduced (i.e., the narrative condition) and fit a pair of hearing aids, the participant was asked to provide their initial feedback about the hearing aids, and the participant performed speech-in-noise testing. Unbeknownst to the research participant, the hearing aids fitted at all three appointments were the same, and the only difference between the three appointments was the way the hearing aids were described to the participants. RESULTS The results of this study showed that communication of a positive narrative about hearing aids before a hearing aid fitting led to better speech-in-noise performance on the QuickSIN as compared with performance following the negative or neutral narrative conditions. Also, the positive narrative led to the perception that acclimatization to the hearing aids would occur faster than the negative or neutral narrative conditions. Notably, the effect of communication of a positive narrative was stronger for individuals who scored higher on agreeableness, and susceptibility to positive and negative messaging was stronger for individuals low in neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS The study suggests that short-term evaluations of hearing aids can be strongly influenced by narratives as provided by the hearing healthcare provider at the time of a hearing aid fitting.

Objective: To investigate how higher maximum force output (MFO) in bone anchored hearing systems (BAHS) affects perceived benefit and the subjective experience of sound as well as hearing outcomes in subjects with mixed hearing loss. Study Design: Prospective single-center, randomized crossover design (A-B-A) with within-subject control design. Patients: The study included 19 experienced BAHS users with mixed hearing loss in the fitting range of a standard BAHS. Interventions: The study evaluated two sound processors with differing MFOs and sizes—Device A: standard sound processor with a lower MFO and Device B: superpower sound processor with a higher MFO. Outcome Measures: Speech recognition in noise at different signal to noise ratios, aided thresholds, and questionnaires. Results: Speech recognition test showed significant improvements using Device B compared with Device A at both 78 dB SPL (mean difference: 9%) and 75 dB SPL (mean difference: 12%) (p

Los Trastornos de las Funciones Auditivas Centrales (TFAC) resultan de un déficit en el procesamiento sensorial que afecta a la escucha, la comprensión del habla y el aprendizaje. Estos déficit son producto de la incapacidad o falta de habilidad para atender, discriminar, reconocer o comprender la información de origen auditivo. El estudio de las funciones auditivas centrales resulta compleja toda vez que no constituye una entidad unitaria atribuible a una sola categoría nosológica. Los déficit observados en el procesamiento de la información auditiva a nivel central pueden expresarse de muy distinta forma y responder a múltiples etiologías. El estudio de la audición como fenómeno central implica una aproximación desde una perspectiva funcional que requiere de un acercamiento a la audición como proceso y un amplio conocimiento acerca de las correspondencias anatómico funcionales de la audición. La evaluación audiológica de estos trastornos comprende el uso de pruebas psicoacústicas y electrofisiológicas seleccionadas según la historia clínica del paciente. Las intervenciones propuestas para los pacientes diagnosticados con TFAC se basan en la utilización de los recursos centrales en la mejorara de las capacidades lingüísticas y cognoscitivas, desarrollo de aptitudes auditivolingüísticas, desarrollo del metalenguaje, utilización de estrategias compensatorias y desarrollo de estrategias de escucha y metacognición.

Purpose Listeners shift their listening strategies between lower level acoustic information and higher level semantic information to prioritize maximum speech intelligibility in challenging listening conditions. Although increasing task demands via acoustic degradation modulates lexical-semantic processing, the neural mechanisms underlying different listening strategies are unclear. The current study examined the extent to which encoding of lower level acoustic cues is modulated by task demand and associations with lexical-semantic processes. Method Electroencephalography was acquired while participants listened to sentences in the presence of four-talker babble that contained either higher or lower probability final words. Task difficulty was modulated by time available to process responses. Cortical tracking of speech—neural correlates of acoustic temporal envelope processing—were estimated using temporal response functions. Results Task difficulty did not affect cortical tracking of temporal envelope of speech under challenging listening conditions. Neural indices of lexical-semantic processing (N400 amplitudes) were larger with increased task difficulty. No correlations were observed between the cortical tracking of temporal envelope of speech and lexical-semantic processes, even after controlling for the effect of individualized signal-to-noise ratios. Conclusions Cortical tracking of the temporal envelope of speech and semantic processing are differentially influenced by task difficulty. While increased task demands modulated higher level semantic processing, cortical tracking of the temporal envelope of speech may be influenced by task difficulty primarily when the demand is manipulated in terms of acoustic properties of the stimulus, consistent with an emerging perspective in speech perception.

This manuscript describes a telephone outreach project for members of a research registry program for older adults in Detroit, Michigan. From April until December 2020, the Healthier Black Elders Center designed and implemented a telephone outreach program, calling 1204 older adults utilizing 15 staff and volunteers. The calls served to check in on registry members and collect data on mental health, coping mechanisms, access to services, masks, testing, and tele-health. This paper details the methods of developing and implementing an innovative engagement program that collected time-sensitive data from older Black adults that has directly been applied to create virtual health education programs, share resource information, and create a program to reduce social isolation. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11524-021-00564-9.

BACKGROUND: The leader’s attitude or behavior to staff or subordinates greatly determined a conducive working atmosphere in a hospital. Decrease in performance and job dissatisfaction will impact work productivity, attendance (absenteeism), the quality of services provided, and the exit of the workforce itself (turn-over). This is why the importance of a harmonious relationship between a leader and his staff or subordinates. AIM: This study aims to determine nurses’ views regarding caring leadership of the head of the room. METHODS: The research method used in this study is descriptive qualitative with a face-to-face interview. Fifteen registered nurses were involved in this study that interacts directly to the patient and nurse manager. The data were analyzed by content analysis. RESULTS: Nurse perceived caring leadership, including giving positive feelings, listening, encouraging, influencing, experience, proactive, and struggling for the subordinates. CONCLUSION: A deep understanding of caring leadership could bring the curricula with the new course of caring leadership. The student can learn and practice from the early time. It would bring a caring attitude as a part of their own life.

By applying the microscopic endoscope to the child's closed eye, I was able to hear quite clear intermittent blowing noise in a certain group of children. Having become interested in this phenomenon, I began to find out in detail the place of localization, the cause and essence of this vascular noise.

Background: An inevitable traffic accident frequently resulted from the dereliction of individualized community from disobeying regulation which causes an impact on the safety of another person. The impact raised is not merely in terms of material but also non-material. Objective: This research was aimed to know the correlation between risky riding behavior and the accident of motorcycles experienced by university students of Halu Oleo University of Kendari, Indonesia. Methods: This research utilized the cross-sectional design. Data were collected on June 2021 using a validated questionnaire online among 251 respondents. Results: 84.5% of respondents had ever experienced motorcycle accidents. There was a correlation between listening to music while riding ( p = 0.973), riding with the speed more than 50 km/hour ( p = 0.220), sudden braking ( p = 0.267), overtaking without turning rear light ( p = 0.518), with the motorcycle accidents. Conclusion: The dangerous riding behavior can potentially decrease the rider’s ability and increase the possibility of a car accident. The university could improve safe riding through empowering and encouraging education about riding towards students.

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether auditory prepulse inhibition (PPI) and/or prepulse facilitation (PPF) were altered in people with fibromyalgia (FM) when compared with controls. Eyeblink responses were recorded from 29 females with FM and 27 controls, while they listened to 3 blocks of auditory stimuli that delivered pulses with either PPI or PPF. Using a linear mixed model, our main findings were that there was a GROUP*CONDITION interaction (F4, 1084 = 4.01, P= .0031) indicating that the difference in amplitude between FM group and control group changed depending on the condition (PPI or PPF). Post hoc tests revealed no differences between the groups in response to PPI. The FM group showed a greater reactivity of response to the PPF conditioned stimulus than the control group did (t(39.7) = 2.03, P= .0494). Augmentation of PPF, as demonstrated by the FM group is thought to be linked to alterations in information processing mediated by an autonomically driven general orienting process. Activities that decrease autonomic drive or rebalance autonomic and parasympathetic tone such as vagal stimulation might be pursued as effective interventions for people with FM. Perspective This article presents evidence of preservation of neural circuitry that underpins response suppression and evidence of neural circuit disturbance mediated by autonomic drive-in people with FM. These results are important because intact circuitry underpins the effectiveness of therapies and may be harnessed, and rebalancing autonomic drive may be indicated.

BACKGROUND: Dissociation by music may impact the rate of perceived exertion (RPE), which is an indicator of internal loads during exercise. However, it is not clear how music affects the RPE, neuromuscular, and cognitive responses to exercise. AIM: To determine whether listening to preferred music during indoor endurance exercise influences RPE, neuromuscular, and cognitive responses in healthy individuals. METHOD: Thirteen healthy adults performed sessions of prolonged indoor cycling at moderate intensity while listening or not to preferred music. Reaction time, selective attention, and memory were evaluated before, during, and/or after the exercise sessions. RPE, heart rate, muscle activation, pedaling torque, and cadence were recorded during the exercises. RESULTS: RPE (P = 0.004, d = 0.40), heart rate (P = 0.048, d = 0.53) and cadence (P = 0,043; d = 0.51) were higher in the music session compared to no music. Selective attention (P = 0.233), simple reaction time (P = 0.360), working and short-term memory (P > 0.05), as well as torque (P = 0.262) and muscle activation (RMS and MDF, P > 0.05) did not differ between music and no music sessions. CONCLUSION: Indoor cycling while listening to preferred music elicited higher internal loads, which we consider a result of higher cardiovascular demand. However, the effects of music on neuromuscular and cognitive responses were not evident. We conclude that music can be helpful to improve demand during indoor exercise.

A requirement for modern hearing aids is to evaluate a listening environment for the user and automatically apply appropriate gain and feature settings for optimal hearing in that listening environment. This has been predominantly achieved by the hearing aids' acoustic sensors, which measure acoustic characteristics such as the amplitude and modulation of the incoming sound sources. However, acoustic information alone is not always sufficient for providing a clear indication of the soundscape and user's listening needs. User activity such as being stationary or being in motion can drastically change these listening needs. Recently, hearing aids have begun utilizing integrated motion sensors to provide further information to the hearing aid's decision-making process when determining the listening environment. Specifically, accelerometer technology has proven to be an appropriate solution for motion sensor integration in hearing aids. Recent investigations have shown benefits with integrated motion sensors for both laboratory and real-world ecological momentary assessment measurements. The combination of acoustic and motion sensors provides the hearing aids with data to better optimize the hearing aid features in anticipation of the hearing aid user's listening needs.

Study objective Patient experience metrics have become increasingly important in evaluations of health care organizations and physician performance. Although such measures have been touted as a way to make objective comparisons of performance, they are subject to many of the same biases as other survey instruments, including gender bias. Methods A total of 320 surveys were conducted between February and October 2020. Surveys included vignettes describing different scenarios, and respondents were asked to rate the vignette physician in each scenario on 1 of 3 themes: listening, time, or courtesy. Three vignettes per theme were used. Half of the surveys used a male physician and half used a female physician. Using tests of difference, we compared the ratings of male and female vignette physicians. We also used a statistical technique known as anchoring vignettes to show how respondents’ ratings of vignette physicians related to their ratings of their own physicians. Results In all 9 vignette scenarios, the male vignette physician was rated more highly than the female vignette physician. These differences were statistically significant in 2 of 9 scenarios. Male vignette physicians were given more top-box ratings than female vignette physicians. Anchoring vignettes showed a statistically nonsignificant association between vignette ratings and ratings of respondents’ own physicians. Conclusion Our findings revealed a pattern of higher ratings of male vignette physicians when compared to female vignette physicians, which may translate to ratings of patients’ own physicians. These findings suggest that current methods to evaluate patients’ experiences with their own physicians may disadvantage female physicians.

Researchers paid ample attention to an important variable called boredom in numerous contexts; however, limited research exists regarding the association of boredom with listening comprehension performance in EFL settings. Thus, the current study aims to establish the association between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance by deploying listening boredom coping strategies as a mediating construct. A quantitative research approach, and a cross-sectional and correlational research design was used to conduct this study. A listening comprehension test and questionnaires were used to gather the data from 313 Saudi EFL learners. Results directed that there exists a negative yet significant association between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance. In addition, listening boredom showed a positive and significant association with all of the four listening boredom coping strategies. Furthermore, three out of four listening boredom coping strategies (i.e., behavioral, cognitive, and behavioral avoidance) showed a positive and significant association with listening performance; however, cognitive avoidance strategies showed a significant yet negative association with listening comprehension performance. Lastly, results regarding mediation indicated that listening boredom coping strategies mediated the relationship between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance. Based on the results, various recommendations were presented to EFL learners, instructors, and policymakers.

University students often face different kinds of stress such as problems with studies, family, friends and financial. This predisposes them to anxiety, sadness, anger and depression. To overcome their stress, students use different types of coping strategies. This study aims to investigate the stress level and the coping strategies by the university students and also to identify the relationship between the effects of stress based on their gender. The data in this study are primary data that were collected through direct questionnaire. Descriptive analysis and chi-square test were used to analyse the data. The result of this study indicates that a majority of the students have moderate level of stress. Many of the students become sad when they are in stress. In order to reduce the stress, most of the students sleep, followed by listening to music. The chi-square test shows no relationship between the effects of stress among female and male students.

Offenders experience a number of problems integrating into society after being released from prison. There are examples of many programs that have been developed and implemented in prisons to ensure the reintegration of offenders. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the Community Reintegration Program, which was developed for offenders in an open prison. The participants included 60 male offenders between 26 and 44 years of age (M = 36.02, SD = 6.24). The participants were either assigned to an education group (N = 30) or comparison group (N = 30). To evaluate the effectiveness of the education program, the participants completed the Anger Expression and Trait Anger Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Communication Skills Scale, and Personal Information Form before and after the intervention. The education group participated in a six-week Community Reintegration Program, which comprised three sessions that included communication skills and coping with stress and anger. A series of 2 X 2 repeated measures ANOVA and ANCOVA analyses were conducted to investigate the program’s effectiveness. The findings revealed that the interaction effects between group and time were significant for the scores of the subscales of the Communication Skills Scale, specifically, basic skills and personal/self-expression, caring communication, willingness to communicate, active listening and non-verbal communication, and complying with communication principles as well as the three subscales of the Anger Expression and Trait Anger Scale, namely, anger-in, anger-out, and anger control. In relation to communication skills and anger management, the program was found to be effective among those in the education group. However, with regard to trait anger, insufficient self-efficacy, and perceived stress/distress, the program was ineffective. Despite its limitations, this study contributed significantly to the literature on intervention programs for adult offenders. It is recommended that the effectiveness of the program be explored in various institutions. It is further suggested that anger and stress should be measured after the program is improved