The Early Childhood HOME Inventory and HOME-Short Form in Differing Racial/Ethnic Groups: Are There Differences in Underlying Structure, Internal Consistency of Subscales, and Patterns of Prediction?

In this article, we examine differences across three racial/ethnic groups in (a) the psychometric properties of the Early Childhood HOME Inventory and the HOME-Short Form and (b) the prediction of the two versions of the HOME Inventory to cognitive and behavioral outcomes among preschool children. Data are taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS) and the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) sample. Findings suggest few racial/ethnic differences in the psychometric properties of either version of the HOME scale. Both show better prediction of cognitive child outcomes for all three racial/ethnic groups. Both show better prediction of child outcomes generally for European American than for Hispanic and African American families. Findings suggest that although certain aspects of parenting are common, these dimensions of parenting are not equally important in explaining child outcomes for different racial/ethnic subgroups.