The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory: The Derivation of Conceptually Designed Subscales

Abstract

Objective. Our goals for this Special Issue are threefold. First, we report on the development of conceptually meaningful subscales that assess specific domains of the home environment for the 3 youngest age versions of the HOME Inventory (infants/toddlers, early childhood, and middle childhood). Second, we address the problems inherent to the items relying on caregiver (typically maternal) self-report. Third, we assess the predictive validity of the newly developed subscales. Design. To address our objectives, we drew data from 6 large, national data sets. These include the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), the National Longitudinal Study of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (NICHD-SECC), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS), the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHS). Exact sample sizes vary by age version of the HOME Inventory used. Results. We assessed the predictive validity of our proposed HOME subscales by correlating them with selected cognitive and behavioral outcomes in each data set. Conclusions. Results from each article are discussed with respect to the validity of the newly derived subscales.