Life at Home: Same Time,Different Places — An Examination of the HOME Inventory in Different Cultures

In this paper we review literature on the use of the HOME Inventory across cultures. We address issues pertaining to measurement equivalence and validity. Specifically, we focus on: (a) changes in the content of HOME made by researchers, (b) distributional properties of HOME scores, (c) the factor structure of HOME, and (d) correlations between HOME, family characteristics, child characteristics and environmental conditions. In most affluent, western countries, with their individualist orientations, HOME was used essentially as it was originally constructed. Researchers in less industrialized, more collectivist countries tended to express greater scepticism about the appropriateness of some HOME items, and several teams of researchers made modifications in the instrument. The HOME total score showed theoretically meaningful (and similar) correlations with family structure, family status and child outcome measures across many cultures. Evidence attesting to the cultural equivalence (and validity) of HOME subscales was far less plentiful and compelling. In general, there seemed greater cross-cultural equivalence for items assessing cognitively stimulating aspects of the environment than for items assessing socioemotional support. The usefulness of the Inventory in other cultures and for cross-cultural comparisons depends on the purposes one has for using a measure of the home environment. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The home observation for measurement of the environment (HOME) scale: A review of research

Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scale is perhaps the most widely used instrument to assess the quality of a young child's home learning environment. In this paper, the HOME'S psychometric properties and methodological uses are explored, and its utility as a research and clinical instrument is examined. Strengths of the HOME scale include the relatively wide range of information available pertaining to its psychometric properties and its use in studies of a variety of populations for a variety of purposes. Weaknesses include the fact that most research relating HOME scores to later child development is correlational. Several suggestions for future research are offered.     

The quality of children's home environment and attachment security in Indonesia

The authors examined the relation of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory (B. M. Caldwell & R. H. Bradley, 1984) for 0- to 6-year-old Sundanese Indonesian children with the quality of the mother-child attachment relationship (n=44) and attachment-related behaviors during play interactions (n=37) and with characteristics of the Indonesian caregiving context (N=77). Results showed that infants and toddlers with secure attachment relationships lived in higher quality home environments than did children with insecure attachment relationships. In particular, children with insecure-resistant attachment relationships lived in more unsafe and less organized homes with less play material available. For preschoolers, a lower quality home environment predicted more negativity and noncompliance toward their mothers in a play setting outside the home. With regard to the caregiving context, the socioeconomic status of the family was strongly related to the quality of preschoolers' home environment. Scores on the HOME Inventory for Infants/Toddlers and the HOME Inventory for Early Childhood were related to other culture-specific contextual characteristics for 0- to 6-year old Indonesian children as well. As a whole, the HOME was a good indicator of the general quality of the Sundanese Indonesian home environment.     

Using the HOME inventory with infants in Costa Rica

It has been established through several decades of research that children's home environments significantly influence their development. Many researchers have also been interested in expanding research beyond indirect measures of the home environment, such as socioeconomic status, to help understand the nature of specific environmental mechanisms which influence early behavior and cognitive development. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory was developed to meet these needs. Specifically, HOME measures the quality of stimulation in a child's early family environment. Almost all studies of the approach's reliability and validity have been conducted with US samples. HOME is, however, being used in other countries. The authors report their findings from a study of whether the psychometric properties of HOME based upon US samples parallel those found in Costa Rica, and whether HOME discriminates between Costa Rican environments with different associations to child health and development. Focus centers upon the infant/toddler version of the HOME Inventory. HOME data for 183 healthy Costa Rican infants were compared to the original HOME standardization sample from Little Rock, Arkansas. The study found the HOME Inventory to be helpful in identifying children at risk for delayed development in this Latin American sample. Lower HOME scores related to a shorter duration of breastfeeding and differentiated children with iron deficiency anemia in infancy, a condition associated with long-lasting developmental disadvantage.     

Home Improvement: Evaluating Secular Changes in NLSY HOME-Cognitive Stimulation and Emotional Support Scores

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This study evaluated changes over time in the quality of children’s home environment, using the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment (HOME)....     

The stability of mastery motivation and its relationship with home environment in infants and toddlers

Mastery motivation (intrinsic drives to explore and master one's environment) is a key developmental element. The aims of this study were to investigate (1) the stability of mastery motivation between 2 and 3 years of age for two genders; and (2) the associations between early home environment and toddlers’ mastery motivation in children with typical development.

Methods

Data of 102 children developing typically from a birth cohort study at Northern Taiwan were analyzed in two parts: (1) stability part: mastery motivation of children were measured at 2 and 3 years of age; (2) environment part: child-parent dyads were assessed from birth, 4 months, 6 months, and 2-3 years of age. Outcomes variables were measured at ages 2 and 3 years by the Dimension of Mastery Questionnaire-17th version. Main predictive variables were measured by Home Observation for Measuring Environment Inventory (HOME) to collect data of the qualities of home environment at 6 months and 2 years; by the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire to obtain 4-month activity levels; and by the Comprehensive Developmental Inventory for Infants and Toddlers to obtain 2-year developmental quotient (DQ).

Results

There was moderate stability of mastery motivation from 2 to 3 years, and girls’ stability was higher than boys’. 6-Month HOME rather than 2-year HOME measures were positively and significantly correlated with instrumental mastery motivation even when controlling for gender, activity level, and DQ.

Conclusion

Mastery motivation had moderate stability during the toddler period. The quality of home environment in infancy appeared to have a significant impact on toddler's mastery motivation. To promote mastery motivation, caregivers should provide better quality of home environment for infants/toddlers during the very early years.     

Comparing the second-order factor structure of the Family Environment Scale across husbands' and wives' perceptions of their family environment.

The Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos, 1986) is one of the most widely used environmental measures in clinical and family research. Clinicians and researchers often use the FES for comparing spouses' perceptions of their family environment, under the assumption that the underlying structure of the FES is the same for husbands and wives. However, no studies have actually compared the structure of the FES across spouse responses to the FES. Additionally, a review of the literature generally suggests a lack of consensus regarding the factor structure of the FES. Using confirmatory factor analyses, we examined whether the second-order factor structures of the FES, as identified in the literature, were consistent across spouses' perceptions of their family environment. Husbands and wives in 130 nonclinical families responded to Form R of the FES. The findings supported the two-factor solution presented by Fowler (1981) and by Boake and Salmon (1983), and did not differ across responses by husbands and wives. In contrast, responses by husbands and wives to the FES could not be modeled using the three-factor solutions presented by Moos and Moos (1986) and by others. The importance of using a measure that is structurally the same across different groups of respondents is discussed.     

The Quality of Home Environment in Brazil: An Ecological Model

Based on Bronfenbrenner's (1999) ecological perspective, a longitudinal, prospective model of individual differences in the quality of home environment (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment—HOME) was tested in a sample of 179 Brazilian children and their families. Perinatal measures of family socioeconomic status (SES) and child birth weight had direct effects on HOME at preschool age. As either family SES or child birth weight increased, HOME also increased through diminished emotional distress in the mother a month following childbirth. SES had a negative effect on number of children in the household, which in turn had a long-term negative impact on HOME. Compared to mothers who had reported not to plan their pregnancy, those who did were more likely to have fewer children, to report more spouse support during childbearing, and to show less emotional distress a month after childbirth, all of which also influenced HOME at preschool age. These findings are discussed in light of the broader socio-ecological Brazilian context, with direct implications to clinical practice aimed at improving the quality of home environment.     

Home environment and infant social behavior

Seventy-two children (18 black males, 18 white males, 18 black females, 18 white females) and their families participated in a study to examine the the validity of the HOME Inventory in terms of its relation to early indices of social behavior. Early social behavior was assessed using the Infant Behavior Record from the Bayley Scales. A factor analysis produced five behavior dimensions: 1) positive orientation and involvement, 2) fear and reticence, 3) enthusiasm and alertness, 4) activity level, and 5) self-absorption. In general, the findings show a similar but somewhat stronger relation between home environment scores and social behavior for females than males. For infant males, positive orientation was significantly related to organization of the environment and provision of appropriate play materials. Self-absorption was moderately related to avoidance of restriction and punishment. For infant girls, both positive orientation and activity level were significantly related to four of the six HOME subscales.     

La consistance de l’intervention éducative parentale : la qualité de l’environnement familial et les comportements interactifs de la mère

Parental child rearing can be analysed through the observation of child-rearing behaviours and also through the way parents organize home environment. This study intends to identify the home environmental quality dimensions that are related to maternal interactive behaviours after accounting for maternal education level.The participants were 120 mothers of children aged 14 to 49 months. The quality of home environment was assessed with HOME Inventory for Families of Infants and Toddlers (Caldwell and Bradley, 1984). Interactive behaviours were collected, video registered and coded using the Mothers Teaching Styles Rating Scale (Cruz, Aguiar and Barros, 2004; McWilliam et al., 1996).Positive associations were found between HOME total score and the responsiveness and active teaching dimensions of maternal interactive behaviour; these associations decreased after accounting for maternal education level. Negative associations were found between home environment and non contingent involvement; but these associations slightly increased after accounting for maternal education level.     

The HOME inventory: A review of findings from the Little Rock longitudinal study

The Caldwell HOME Inventory is a 45-item observation/interview procedure designed to assess the quality and quantity of support for development available to the infant in the home environment. Using the HOME, a longitudinal study of over 100 families from Little Rock, Arkansas has been conducted. A review of the longitudinal study is presented. The review shows substantial relation between HOME scores and children's mental test scores throughout the preschool years. Some sex and race differences in the relation were noted. Studies investigated the reciprocal relation of infant and environment and the effect of environmental stability on development.     

The Effect of Research with Teenage Mothers on the Development of Their Infants1

Mother-infant interaction of 14 teenage mothers and 12 women 20 years or older was observed and recorded in the laboratory or the home when the infants were 16, 20, 24, and 52 weeks of age. In order to assess the possible effect of the research intervention on the maternal behavior and on the infants' development, a control group of teenage mothers and their infants was seen only at the end of the study when the infant was 52 weeks old. At 12 months the Home Observation Measure of the Environment Inventory (HOME) was administered and infants were assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (motor and mental scales) and the Ainsworth Strange Situation procedure. On all measures the observation groups scored significantly higher than the control group. The significant aspects of the research intervention are discussed.     

Validating the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale: testing factor structure and measurement invariance across child gender and age in a Dutch sample

The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is widely used to examine teachers' relationships with young students in terms of closeness, conflict, and dependency. This study aimed to verify the dimensional structure of the STRS with confirmatory factor analysis, test its measurement invariance across child gender and age, improve its measurement of the dependency construct, and extend its age range. Teachers completed a slightly adapted STRS for a Dutch sample of 2335 children aged 3 to 12. Overall, the 3-factor model showed an acceptable fit. Results indicated metric invariance across gender and age up to 8years. Scalar invariance generally did not hold. Lack of metric invariance at ages 8 to 12 primarily involved Conflict items, whereas scale differences across gender and age primarily involved Closeness items. The adapted Dependency scale showed strong invariance and higher internal consistencies than the original scale for this Dutch sample. Importantly, the revealed non-invariance for gender and age did not influence mean group comparisons.     

Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development

A variety of family processes have been hypothesized to mediate associations between income and young children's development. Maternal emotional distress, parental authoritative and authoritarian behavior (videotaped mother-child interactions), and provision of cognitively stimulating activities (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment [HOME] scales) were examined as possible mediators in a sample of 493 White and African American low-birth-weight premature infants who were followed from birth through age 5. Cognitive ability was assessed by standardized test, and child behavior problems by maternal report, when the children were 3 and 5 years of age. As expected, family income was associated with child outcomes. The provision of stimulating experiences in the home mediated the relation between family income and both children's outcomes; maternal emotional distress and parenting practices mediated the relation between income and children's behavior problems.     

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A comment on Zimmerman's critique

This paper is a reply to an article in this journal by M. Zimmerman titled “The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A Comment on Elardo and Bradley's Review”. We found Zimmerman's critique of our original review article (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 113–145) to contain points which were well taken, and several which seemed pedantic. Specifically, we address his concerns about our discussion of the HOME scale's interrater reliability, test-retest stability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity; and we reply to his comments about the uses of the HOME scale for purposes of screening and matching environments.     

Corrected and uncorrected Bayley scores: Longitudinal developmental patterns in low and high birth weight preterm infants

In this study, we longitudinally investigated developmental changes in very low birth weight (VLBW, less than 1500 gms), in higher birth weight (HBW, 1500–2000 gms) preterm, and in full-term (FT) infants. We also investigated changes in their caretaking home environment. The subjects were 20 VLBW, 39 HBW, and 24 FT infants who participated in an intervention study. Blind independent assessments were performed at 4, 8, 12, and 16 months corrected age using the Bayley mental and motor scales, both corrected for prematurity and uncorrected, the Infant and Toddler temperament questionnaires, and the Caldwell Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment inventory (HOME). The VLBW infants obtained the lowest mental (77) and motor (77) uncorrected scores, which were significantly different from the mental and motor scores of the HBW (94 and 89, respectively) and of the FT (115 and 109, respectively) infants. Mental and motor uncorrected scores were significantly lower at 4 months than at 8, 12, and 16 months. By 12 months, the uncorrected scores of the HBW infants no longer differed from the FT ones, and by 16 months only the difference between the FT and the VLBW was significant. The corrected mental and motor scores yielded no significant group or age differences. Post hoc analysis of an interaction in the motor scores yielded significantly higher scores for the FT than for the VLBW group at the last assessment. Overall, the VLBW infants were more passive and less intense than were either HBW or FT infants. In general, the home environment of the VLBW infants was significantly less stimulating and responsive than was the home environment of the FT and HBW infants. These results are discussed in terms of vulnerability of the VLBW preterm infants to developmental deficits and the difficulties their parents experience in their caretaking role.     

Efficacy of In-Home Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been much discussion of the efficacy of mental health interventions for children as well as the transportation of empirically-supported treatments (ESTs) to field settings. A logical initial step in this line of research is to examine whether the efficacy of ESTs can be demonstrated in community settings such as in the home environment. The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of an in-home Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) program using a single-subject, A/B design across five subjects with staggered baselines. Decreases in caregiver use of negative behavior and caregiver-reported child behavior problems were observed for the three families that completed treatment. In addition, completers demonstrated increases in child compliance, caregiver use of positive behavior, and contingent praise. Data regarding caregivers' reported parenting stress and caregiver proportion of direct commands were less convincing. All three dyads completing treatment reported satisfaction with the intervention. Clinical implications regarding the possible benefits of PCIT for improving the effectiveness of home visiting programs are discussed as well as directions for future research.     

Risk factors for adolescent marijuana use across cultures and across time.

An integrated analysis of the data from 3 different studies was conducted to examine the early psychosocial predictors of later marijuana use among adolescents. Longitudinal analysis of interview data was performed. The data used in the analysis were derived from (a) a sample of 739 predominantly White adolescents representative of the northeastern United States, (b) a sample of 1,190 minority adolescents from the East Harlem section of New York City, and (c) a sample of 1,374 Colombian adolescents from two cities in Colombia, South America. In 2 of the samples, participants were interviewed in their homes, and in the 3rd study, participants were assessed in school. The predictors included a number of variables from (a) the personality domain, reflecting the adolescents' conventionality and intrapsychic functioning; (b) the family domain, representing the parent-child mutual attachment relationship and parental substance use; (c) the peer domain, reflecting the peer group's delinquency and substance use; and (d) the adolescents' own use of legal drugs. The dependent variable was adolescent marijuana use. The results of the analysis demonstrated remarkable consistency in the risk and protective factors for later marijuana use across the 3 samples, attesting to the robust nature of these predictors and their generalizability across gender, time, location, and ethnic/cultural background. These findings have important implications for designing intervention programs. Programs aimed at preventing adolescent marijuana use can be designed to incorporate universal features and still incorporate specific components that address the unique needs of adolescents from different groups.     

Factor structure and measurement invariance of the multidimensional driving style inventory across gender and age: An ESEM approach

The Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory (MDSI) is the most comprehensive measure of typical driving behavior to date and has been frequently used to compare driving styles across different groups of drivers, particularly between gender- and age-related groups. However, the factor structure of MDSI has not been clearly established and its measurement invariance has not been demonstrated. The goal of the present study was to examine the internal structure and measurement invariance of the MDSI across gender and age. A sample of 1277 drivers from Argentina responded to the Argentinian version of the MDSI. Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was used to test the factor structure and measurement invariance across females (n = 602) and males (n = 675), and across young (18–29, n = 558), adult (30–49, n = 395) and older (50 and older, n = 317) drivers. The results showed that a 36-item six-factor ESEM model represented by risky, angry, dissociative, anxious, distress-reduction and careful and patient driving styles was the best model based on fit indices and interpretability. Configural, weak and strong invariance of the six-factor ESEM model across gender and age was also supported. The MDSI in its Argentinian version is equivalent across gender and age, supporting the validity of previous research findings examining gender and age differences in driving styles. Future studies should examine the measurement invariance of the MDSI across other relevant driving-related variables.     

A test of the factor structure equivalence of the 50-item IPIP Five-factor model measure across gender and ethnic groups

Personality is frequently assessed in research and applied settings, in part due to evidence that scores on measures of the Five-factor model (FFM) of personality show predictive validity for a variety of outcomes. Although researchers are increasingly using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999; International Personality Item Pool, 2007b) FFM measures, investigations of the psychometric properties of these measures are unfortunately sparse. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure equivalence of the 50-item IPIP FFM measure across gender and ethnic groups (i.e., Whites, Latinos, Asian Americans) using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results from a sample of 1,727 college students generally support the invariance of the factor structure across groups, although there was some evidence of differences across gender and ethnic groups for model parameters. We discuss these findings and their implications.