Mindfulness and social-emotional skills in Latino pre-adolescents in the U.S.: The mediating role of executive function.

Latino youth are the largest and the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the U.S., and social-emotional skills are critical to their ability to cope with acculturative stress, perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and cultural value conflicts. Despite the significant challenges faced by Latino youth in the U.S., a paucity of research has examined the social-emotional skills of Latino pre-adolescents specifically. Recent research suggests that mindfulness may be closely linked to youth social-emotional skills, and executive function may serve as a mediating mechanism, but such associations have not been examined prior to this study. Using a cross-sectional survey among a sample of Latino youth in fifth-sixth grades in northern New Jersey (N = 97, Mage  = 11, 54% male), this study examines the association between their mindfulness and their social-emotional skills, and tests the role of executive function in this relationship. Among the sampled Latino youth, mindfulness is positively associated with executive function, which is positively associated with social-emotional skills. Additionally, being male and being older both have marginally significant negative effect on social-emotional skills. Our results suggest that mindfulness, the awareness of and intentional focus on one's present thoughts and emotions with self-compassion, may benefit Latino pre-adolescents' executive function, which in turn may exhibit as improved social-emotional skills. This preliminary evidence and the differences based on gender and age therein warrant further investigation with larger samples among Latino youth. Future research and service implications are discussed.

Floating knee injuries treated with single-incision technique versus traditional antegrade femur fixation: a comparative study.

Forty-three patients with floating knee injuries were treated from January 1994 through March 1999. The study group consisted of 25 patients treated with retrograde nailing of the femur and antegrade nailing of the tibia through a single incision, and the control group consisted of 18 patients treated with traditional femoral and tibial antegrade intramedullary nailing. The femoral retrograde technique required less set-up time, anesthesia time, and surgical time than did the traditional femoral antegrade technique and was associated with less estimated blood loss. We conclude that the single-incision technique is a safe and faster alternative procedure for type I floating knee injuries.