The Sport Performance Assessment (SPA) is a great sports performance teaching tool for parents, teachers, coaches, and anyone else who helps kids participating in youth and interscholastic sports. Now for the first time ever, you can have your own “on-call sport psychologist” to help with athletic performance enhancement!The SPA is a short test designed to assess an athletes mental toughness, as measured by confidence, focus, mental preparation, arousal control, and ability to handle adversity. It is designed for athletes 12 years and up, with parental involvement and guidance strongly suggested in order to maximize the value of SPA testing, results, and feedback.To get started, simply begin the assessment and fill in the open fields (name, school, sport) — next, complete the assessment by answering honestly, as there are no right or wrong answers. It is imperative that athletes answer truthfully in order to receive the appropriate skill building feedback that is automatically generated based on the users scores.After completing the SPA, scores are immediately generated that include graphs for easy-to-view score representations and comparisons. After examining the scores (colorful icons are provided for easy analysis), a professional feedback report is made available that includes specific insights about what each score means, and suggestions for improving the areas of concern. This report can also be emailed to the user, allowing for hard drive storage and printing options.As a mentor to an athlete who has completed the SPA, be sure to read over the report and work with the child to develop ways to integrate some of the ideas provided in the SPA report. While the SPA is not intended to be a substitute for individual counseling and does have limitations with respect to the quantity and depth of feedback provided, it does serve as a very useful, convenient, and effective tool to use begin learning about how to develop sport psychology mental training skills to use to enhance athletic abilities.www.drstankovich.com
