I trust Kay much more than these authors on matters of computer science, teaching, or ideas in general.
To expand a bit, I've since mentored over a dozen students and I've found that in most cases of students who couldn't program well, the issue was "further upstream." That is, there was some misunderstanding at a more fundamental level that was preventing them from continuing forward. Once that issue was fixed, they rapidly catch up to where they should be.
I've been fairly skeptical of this paper ever since reading Alan Kay's rebuttal: http://www.secretgeek.net/camel_kay.asp
I trust Kay much more than these authors on matters of computer science, teaching, or ideas in general.
To expand a bit, I've since mentored over a dozen students and I've found that in most cases of students who couldn't program well, the issue was "further upstream." That is, there was some misunderstanding at a more fundamental level that was preventing them from continuing forward. Once that issue was fixed, they rapidly catch up to where they should be.