Research treatments of home environment in studies of intellectual development and school performance are reviewed. The conceptualizations of home environment include variables specifying family status and deprivational conditions, child-rearing techniques, educational and intellectual process variables, and transactional experience. Psychological propositions are supported by evidence which progresses from gross, non-specific family status indices to fine measures of quantity and quality of time spent in caretaker-child transactions. Each conceptualization builds the knowledge social scientists have with respect to aspects of a child's experience that are alterable for optimizing expressions of intelligence and learning. Directions for future research suggest how the early home experience might be used to investigate early classroom experience. (Author/GDC)