ABSTRACT
Much of the research that has investigated the relationship between the environmental background of children and intellectual test performance has concentrated on using global indicators of both the environment and intellectual ability. The environment has generally been defined in terms of social status characteristics such as the occupation of the father and the education of the parents, or family structure variables such as family size and crowding ratio of the home. The utilization of such gross measures of the environment has accounted for only a relatively small proportion of the variability in the intellectual performance of children. Furthermore, general indices of the environment have a limited functional or diagnostic value for the educator.
