The Consistency of the Home Environment and Its Relation to Child Development

Abstract

The study examined the relation of the consistency of the home environment during the first two years of life and children's intelligence test performance at age three for 72 black and white children. Little residual relation between 6-month Caldwell HOME scores and 3-year IQ scores was observed when 12-month HOME scores were partialled out. However, the residual between 12-month HOME and IQ was significant with 6-month HOME partialled out. Some residual relation was observed between 12-month HOME and 3-year IQ with 2-year HOME partialled out. A number of race and sex differences in the relation between HOME scores and IQ were observed with the relation being slightly higher for blacks than whites, especially during the first year of life. Black males showed the most atypical pattern of performance among the four race/sex subgroups