Attempted to examine the generalizability of environment/development relationships among 3 ethnic groups across the first 3 years of life. Social status did not show a consistent relationship to either quality of home environment or children's developmental status across the various groups. Results indicated a fairly consistent relationship between HOME scores and children's developmental status, although there were some ethnic and social status differences in the relationship. Measures of specific aspects of the child's home environment, such as parental responsivity and availability of stimulating play materials, were more strongly related to child developmental status than global measures of environmental quality such as SES. When the child's early developmental status and early home environment were both very low, the likelihood of poor developmental outcomes was markedly increased compared with cases when only one was low.

The study entailed an examination of the relation between the Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME) Inventory and several child-status and family-structure variables; namely, sex, race, socioeconomic status, the amount of crowding in the home, and birth order. Multivariate analyses of covariance were performed on an intact family sample using HOME subscales as criterion measures and the status and structural variables as predictors Only crowding and birth order showed consistent relations with HOME scores when the effects of all other predictor variables were controlled. Of the six HOME scales, Organization of the Environment, Provision of Appropriate Play Materials, and Maternal Involvement showed the strongest relation to the status and structural measures.

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In 2 earlier investigations, we found that scores on the HOME Inventory administered during the first 2 years of life were substantially correlated with intelligence test scores at ages 3 and 4 1/2. In the current investigation, HOME scores in first 2 years showed similar relations to SRA Achievement Test scores during the first grade. In general, findings from this study were like those from the earlier investigations except that the subscale, "maternal responsivity," showed a weaker relation to achievement than IQ; while the "variety of stimulation" scale showed a stronger relation. Of all the HOME subscales, "play materials" revealed the strongest correlation with first-grade achievement. When 12-month Bayley MDI scores were partialed out of the HOME/achievement relation, little reduction was noted in the magnitude of the correlation; however, when 3-year IQ or subsequent HOME scores were partialed out, little residual correlation was noted.