The Effect of Instructional and Motivational Self-Talk on Postural Control of Supra-postural Task

Self-talk is one of the psychological interventions can affect improving and success in the motor performance and sport performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate effectiveness of instructional and motivational self-talk on postural control of supra-postural task among 9-12 years old girls. 60 participants attended in present study, they were randomly divided into three groups: instructional self-talk, motivational self-talk and control group. Intervention protocol was like following: for first time participants performed supra-postural task three trials. Second time, experimental groups 15 seconds before attending in supra-postural task performed instructional and motivational self-talk and Control group performed the test without any intervention. results of one-way ANCOVA revealed that performance of motivational self-talk group was significantly better than instructional self-talk group (P=0.043), and control groups (P=0.013). But there was no significant difference between performance of instructional self-talk and control groups (P=0.621). These findings support applying motivational self-talk as an efficient strategy for improving postural control at a supra-postural task which advantage of this strategy can be used to promote teaching a supra-postural tasks in children.