... some disputing aspects of Piaget's theory. Some of the weaker aspects of Piaget's theory appear to arise from his 'clinical method' of using observational behavioural data to infer conclusions about children's underlying cognitive competences. Longitudinal data, ideally suited to monitoring progression, was only recorded for his own three children. Certain of his techniques were insufficiently sensitive to identify the underlying causes of performance variations, especially with very young infants, where more recent habituation techniques have shown that Piaget considerably underestimated their understanding and ability (Bower, 1982, Baillargeon & DeVos, 1991). This may have led him to overlook other relevant explanations for varying levels of performance, eg limitations on memory capacity (Bryant & Trabasso, 1971, Kail, 1984, Diamond, 1985), motor-co-ordination (Mandler, 1990), availability of memory strategies (Siegler, 1991) and verbal understanding (Sternberg, 1985). However, Piaget's clinical method, his flexible and ecologically valid approach did reveal original insights into children's thinking, which ...

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