ABSTRACT
In the past 25 years, researchers have described in considerable detail children’s problem-solving, mnemonic, and linguistic strategies. In the large majority of cases, the descriptions suggest either that children in general use a particular strategy or that children of one age use one strategy and children of another age use another. Such depictions may be too simple, however. Whether the task is attributing causation, reasoning about spatial location, or solving referential communications problems, children and adults know and use a variety of strategies (Kahan & Richards, 1986; Ohlsson, 1984; Shultz, Fisher, Pratt, & Rulf, 1986). This is true at the level of individuals as well as groups. Individual children often use one strategy on one occasion and a different strategy on the next occasion, even when the two occasions occur within a few minutes of each other (Siegler, 1987a).
