STRUCTURAL INVARIANCE IN THE ASSOCIATIONS OF NAMING SPEED, PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, AND VERBAL REASONING IN GOOD AND POOR READERS - A TEST OF THE DOUBLE DEFICIT HYPOTHESIS

The associations of multiple measures of speeded naming, phonological awareness, and verbal intelligence with word reading were examined in 51 poor readers and 74 good readers in third and fourth grade. Structu ral equation modeling was used to determine the extent to which these two groups exhibited structurally invariant patterns of associations a mong the constructs. Results revealed that for poor readers, both spee ded naming and phonological awareness were significantly associated wi th word reading, but verbal intelligence had no association with it. I n contrast, for good readers, phonological awareness and verbal intell igence were significantly associated with word reading, but naming spe ed was not. Findings are discussed in light of the double deficit hypo thesis.