Low birth weight preterm infants who develop postnatal growth problems, particularly when associated with prenatal growth problems, demonstrate lower physical size, cognitive scores, and academic achievement at age 8. There does not seem to be an independent affect of small for gestational age status on 8-year cognitive status and academic achievement when postnatal growth is adequate.

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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 crosscultural 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. 01996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USAEarly Dev. Parent. 5: [251][252][253][254][255][256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266][267][268][269]19%. No. of Figures: 0. R. H. Bradley, R. F. Conoyn and L. Whiteside-MansellThe 1960s marked a watershed period for studies of the environment. Hunt (1961) made clear the importance of accumulated experience for children's development. Bloom (1964) provided evidence that development was particularly mutable during early childhood and that the trajectory of growth was strongly connected to the pattern of stimulation and support children received. It was during the mid-1960s that Bettye Caldwell and her colleagues (1966) first constructed the Home Observation for Measure ment of the Environment (HOME). HOME is intended to measure the quality and quantity of stimulation and support available to a child in the home environment. Information needed to score the Inventory is obtained during a 45-90-minute home visit. The target child and primary caregiver must be present. The procedure involves semistructured observation and interview done so as to minimize obtrusiveness and to allow family members to act normally. The focus is on the child in the environment, the child as a recipient of inputs from objects, events and transactions. The initial version of the Inventory was intended for use during the infant/toddler (birth to age 3 years) period. It contains 45 binary-choice items clustered into six subscales: (1) acceptance, (2) learning materials, (3) parental involvement, (4) parental responsivity, (5) variety and (6) organization. The Early Childhood HOME is for use between 3 and 6 years old. It contains 55 items clustered into eight subscales: (1) acceptance, (2) learning materials, (3) responsivity, (4) physical environment, (5) variety, (6) language stimulation, (7) learning stimulation and (8) modelling. The Middle Childhood HOME is for use between 6 and 10 years. It contains 59 items clustered into eight subscales: (1) learning materials, (2) parental involvement, (3) responsivity, (4) physical environment, (5) active stimulation, (6) emotional climate, (7) encouraging maturity and (8) family participation. ...

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To link to this article: http://dx. SYNOPSISObjective. This study examines psychometric properties of 2 scales of the Parenting Stress Index -Short Form (PSI -SF) in a sample of preschool children from low-income families. Design. The factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Parental Distress and Parent -Child Dysfunctional Interaction subscales were assessed for 1122 Early Head Start parents of 15-(n = 959), 25-(n = 899), and 37-month-old (n = 845) children in a multisite study. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) compared the fit of 2-factor scales that are recommended by the developer with theoretically derived 5-factor scales. Results. CFA indicated that the 5-factor scales fit the data better than the 2-factor scales. Both 2-and 5-factor scales had high internal consistency, and the pattern of relations between the new scales and validity constructs support their usefulness. Conclusions. The PSI -SF scales can be helpful in clinical applications because the proposed scales clarify relations between parent and child outcomes and specific aspects of stress due to parenting.