Leanne Whiteside

Impact of the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) on the Home Environments of Infants Born Prematurely and with Low Birthweight.

The Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) was designed to improve the development of infants born prematurely and at low birthweight with a combination of (a) education and support services for mothers, and (b) educational day care and health services for children. A randomized clinical trial procedure was used at 8 program sites to examine the impact of the IHDP on the quality of stimulation and support available to children in the home, as measured by the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory. There were no effects on HOME scores at 1 year, but differences favoring the intervention group were noted on 5 of 8 HOME subscales at 3 years. Separate factor analyses of the HOME Inventory revealed that intervention and follow-up groups had similar underlying structures at both time points

A factor analytic study of the Infant-Toddler and Early Childhood versions of the Home Inventory

Over the past 40 years research has clearly established a link between childrens experiences in their home environment and their health and behavioral development to the point that it has become common to include measures of the home environment in investigations of human development as well as in clinical follow-ups. This study examines the underlying characteristics of the home environment as measured by the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory at two different time points in the childrens development-12 and 36 months-using a birth cohort of 985 preterm, low birth weight infants from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP). Separate maximum likelihood factor analyses were performed on the items of the Infant/Toddler (IT-HOME) and the Early Childhood (EC-HOME) versions of HOME and the resulting factors were rotated using the varimax criterion. The rotated factor structures are in agreement with the identified subscales of these two versions of HOME. In addition, the factor structures of the two versions are so similar that they appear to be measuring the same environmental dimensions at two different developmental periods.

The HOME inventory: A new scale for families of pre- and early adolescent children with disabilities

A preliminary form of a new version of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) is presented. It is designed for use with families of children aged 10-15. The 80-item preliminary version of the Preadolescent HOME (PA-HOME) was field tested on 117 children with varying disabilities. The 80 items were selected from a pool of over 250 items by means of several field tests and accompanying item analyses. Both factor analyses and item analyses were used to help pare down items and produce a scale with acceptable psychometric properties. The psychometric properties of the PA-HOME are quite similar to those reported for the other three versions of the HOME Inventory. It appears to be a reasonably reliable scale with moderate correlations with other measures of the family environment, such as SES, social support, and marital stability. It has low to moderate correlations with measures of child competence in this sample of children with disabilities. The correlations are of the same general magnitude of correlations between the Infant-Toddler, Early Childhood, and Middle Childhood versions of HOME in samples of younger children with disabilities.

A reexamination of the association between HOME scores and income.

This study, which represents another look at the relationship between the HOME Inventory and income, uses data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), a multisite, longitudinal study of low-birth-weight preterm infants. Two versions of the HOME Inventory were used: The Infant/Toddler (IT-HOME), at 12 months of age, and the Early Childhood (EC-HOME), at 36 months of age. Predictor variables were income, ethnicity, maternal education, parity, gestational age, marital status, maternal age, and site. HOME scores were positively correlated with income. However, after controlling for the other variables in the models, the portion of the variance in HOME scores uniquely explained by income was quite low (IT-HOME, 5.1%; EC-HOME, 4.2%). Finally, the relationship between HOME scores and four child characteristics (cognitive development, growth, maladaptive behavior, and social competence) measured when the child was 36 months old were investigated using correlation. The results indicated that the quality of the home environment, as measured by the HOME Inventory, is related to childrens development.

Dimensions of parenting in families having children with disabilities

Abstract In this study, we examined relationships between parenting, severity of disability, and five aspects of family ecology for 83 preschool and 69 elementary school children with disabilities. Family ecology variables included socioeconomic status, coping styles, social support, stressful life events, and marital quality. We noted significant positive correlations between parenting (as measured by the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment [HOME] inventory) and both marital quality and social support (especially perceived helpfulness, instrumental support from father, involvement in social groups, and emotional support network). We noted significant negative correlations between parenting and stressful events. The relationship between coping styles and parenting was mixed, but negative coping styles were negatively correlated with parenting. Partial correlations, controlling for socioeconomic status (SES), resulted in a diminishment of some correlations, especially those for social suppo...

Recidivism among boot camp graduates: A comparison of drug offenders to other offenders

Abstract This was a study of recidivism among 792 graduates of the only boot camp in Arkansas. Recidivism was operationalized with two measures in a six-month follow-up period and in a twelve-month follow-up period: (a) the number of months in the community after graduation from boot camp, and (b) return to the Department of Correction after graduation from the boot camp (yes versus no). Several demographic predictors were examined with ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and logistic regression. The primary predictors of recidivism were the type of offense(s) and race at both follow-up periods, and the number of infractions at the boot camp at twelve months. None of the predictors, however, accounted for much variance in recidivism. A recommendation is made that future investigations of recidivism among boot camp graduates consider more personal and interpersonal factors indicated by theory because of the homogeneity of most boot camp populations.

Using the HOME Inventory with families of children with orthopedic disabilities

The usefulness and validity of the Infant-Toddler and Early Childhood versions of the HOME Inventory were examined for 20 infants and 28 preschool age children with moderate to severe orthopedic disabilities. Families were administered the standard version of the Inventory and a version modified to fit the special needs of children with orthopedic impairments. Scores for the families were similar to those observed in the normative sample for the HOME. HOME scores showed moderate correlations with maternal education, low to moderate correlations with the social support available to families, but little relation to stressful life events. Relations with social support differed somewhat as a function of the childs age. HOME scores also showed low to moderate correlations with adaptive behavior, but correlations with IQ were significant only for preschool age children.