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This study investigated the Cantonese tone production ability of children with hearing impairment studying in mainstream schools. The participants were 87 Cantonese-speaking children with mild-to-profound degrees of hearing loss aged 5.92-13.58 in Hong Kong. Most of the children were fitted with hearing aids (n = 65); 17 of them had profound hearing impairment, one who had severe hearing loss had cochlear implantation, and four who had mild hearing loss were without any hearing device. The Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test was administered, and the tones produced were rated by two of the authors and a speech-language pathologist. Group effects of tones, hearing loss level, and also an interaction of the two were found to be significant. The children with profound hearing impairment performed significantly worse than most of the other children. Tone 1 was produced most accurately, whereas tone 6 productions were the poorest. No relationship was found between the number of years of mainstreaming and tone production ability. Tone production error pattern revealed that confusion patterns in tone perception coincided with those in production. Tones having a similar fundamental frequency (F0) at the onset also posed difficulty in tone production for children with hearing impairment.

Objective: To describe the pharmacy profession and the education programs available to train pharmacists in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The practice of pharmacy in the hospital setting and the current development of clinical services are also described., Background: There are two streams of medical practices in the PRC: traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Hospital and community pharmacies are responsible for the dispensing of medicinals used for both streams of medical practices. Forty-two colleges of pharmacy offer pharmacy education, half of which provide a Western medicine approach and the other half traditional Chinese medicine. Both types of colleges offer a four-year curriculum with options for specialization. Opportunities for graduate study are also available. Most of the graduates work in hospital pharmacies. Hospital pharmacies participate in the bulk manufacture of drugs and parenteral fluids. A bulk dispensing system is used by some hospitals; individual patient doses are dispensed in others. Recently, the need to develop clinical pharmacy services in PRC was recognized and training courses were begun. Curricula with specialization in clinical pharmacy are being considered by colleges of pharmacy., Conclusions: It is anticipated that through increased awareness of the potential contribution of pharmacists in the PRC healthcare system, more opportunities for educating pharmacists will be made available to satisfy the vast need of the country. Development of clinical pharmacy services also will be expected to improve the quality of care provided.