The Effect of Different Focus of Attention Instructions on learning of over hand throw in Educable Mentally Retarded Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different internal and external focus of attention instructions on learning of over hand throw in educable mentally retarded students. In this semi-experimental study, 12 boys and 6 girls from 12 to 14 years of age based on the IQ of 50 to 75 were randomly selected and according to the scores obtained in the pretest, were matched equally in the three groups including internal attention, near external attention and far external attention. Participants in the acquisition stage, in each group performed 4 blocks of 8 trials of throws with preferred hand. There was a 5 minutes resting between them. All three groups performed throws at a distance of 2 meters during the training stages. After the last training session, 10 throws were performed as a post-test and retention and transfer tests were performed 24 hours afterward, each of them included 10 throwing but transfer test was done for all three groups at a distance of 3 meters. Results showed that all three training groups had a progression from pre-test to transfer test and showed a significant difference (P≤0.05). Also the results showed far external attention group led to better learning, and then, the near external attention and internal attention groups, respectively performed better. In general, based on the research findings, the external attention group had a more stable learning and this confirms the constrained action hypothesis of Woolf et al (2001) in mentally retarded children.