The Mental and Social Life of Babies

The Mental and Social Life of Babies is a 1982 book by Kenneth Kaye. Integrating a contemporary burgeoning field of research on infant cognitive and social development in the first two years of life with his own laboratory's studies at the University of Chicago, Kaye offered an "apprenticeship" theory. Seen as an empirical turning point in the investigation of processes in early human development, the book's reviews[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] welcomed its reliance on close (second by second) process studies of a large sample of infants and mothers (50) recorded longitudinally (birth to 30 months). It was republished in England,[10] Japan,[11] Spain,[12] Italy,[13] and Argentina.[14]

The Mental and Social Life of Babies: How Parents Create Persons
First paperback edition, 1984
AuthorKenneth Kaye
LanguageEnglish
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
Publication date
1982
Media typePrint
Pages282+index
ISBN0226428486

Since the argument placed social relations at the root of mental development, it amounted to an extension of Lev Vygotsky’s theory and of his objections to Jean Piaget, down to the first year of life. (Their debate dealt with the preschool years.[15] ) However, the cited evidence from research by many authors in the 1970s also refined the argument Vygotsky had made. Previous writers seem to have assumed, like Piaget, that communication is a felicitous by-product of a symbol-using mind. (If they doubted it, no one had created empirical paradigms to study the processes involved.) Like Vygotsky, Kaye held the contrary: that communication is the origin of mind. His decade-long research program addressed the question: How does communication itself develop in an organism that still lacks a mind? His answer is the "apprenticeship" theory of infancy: Development of the human mind and language depends as much upon preadapted (through evolution) adult behavior and universal human interaction patterns as it does upon the infant's brain. "The kinds of exchanges with adults that facilitate sensorimotor and later linguistic development require little from the infant at first except regularities in behavior and expressive reactions that parents tend to interpret as if they were meaningful gestures."[16]

References
  1. Field, T (1984). Contemporary Psychology (1). Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. Goldberg, S (1983). Child Development Abstracts and Bibliography. 57 (5). Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. Angrilli, A (1983). American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 3: 29–46. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. Sharp, S (1984). Sociology and Social Research. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. Chiswick, N (September 1984). Contemporary Sociology. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. Richards, M (1984). Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology. 26: 834. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. Bruner, J (Oct 27, 1983). "State of the Child". New York Review of Books: 86–87.
  8. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 3: 317–318. 1985. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. Flament, F (1984). Annee Psychologie: 612–613. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. The Mental and Social Life of Babies. London: London:Methuen. 1983.
  11. ISBN 4-623-02255-2 (1993)
  12. La Vida Mental y Social del Bebé. Barcelona:Ediciones Paidós. 1986.
  13. La Vita Mentale e Sociale del Bambino. Roma:Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore. 1989.
  14. La Vida Mental y Social del Bebé. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Paidós. 2000.
  15. B Rogoff, J Rudge (1999). "Peer influences on cognitive development: Piagetian and Vygotskian influences". Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments, eds. P Lloyd & C Fernyhough. Routledge. 3: 261–279.
  16. Kaye, K. (1982). The Mental and Social Life of Babies. p. 3.
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