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).

[14] 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.

His decade-long research program addressed the question: How does communication itself develop in an organism that still lacks a mind?

"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.