Concurrent relationships among measures of naming speed, phonological awareness, orthographic skill, and other reading subskills were explored in a representative sample of second graders. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that naming speed, as measured by the the rapid automatized naming (RAN) task, accounted for a sizable amount of unique variance in reading with vocabulary and phonemic awareness partialled out. The unique contribution of naming speed to reading was relatively stronger for orthographic skills, whereas the contribution of phonemic skills was stronger for nonword decoding. In further analyses, marked difficulties on a range of reading tasks, including orthographic processing, were seen in a subgroup with a double deficit (slow naming speed and low phonemic awareness) but not in groups with only a single deficit. These findings are broadly consistent with Bowers and Wolf's (1993a, 1993b; Wolf & Bowers, 1999) double-deficit hypothesis of reading disability.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ackerman, P.T., & Dykman, R.A. (1993). Phonological processes, confrontational naming and immediate memory in dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities , 26, 597-609.
2.
Adams, M., & Huggins, A. (1985). The growth of children's sight vocabulary: A quick test with educational and theoretical implications. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 262-281.
3.
Badian, N.A. (1993). Phonemic awareness, naming, visual symbol processing, and reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal , 5, 87-100.
4.
Blachman, B.A. (1984). Relationship of rapid naming ability and language analysis skills to kindergarten and first-grade reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 610-622.
5.
Bowers, P.G. (1995). Tracing symbol naming speed's unique contributions to reading disabilities over time. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 189-216.
6.
Bowers, P.G., Golden, J., Kennedy, A., & Young, A. (1994). Limits upon orthographic knowledge due to processes indexed by naming speed. In V. W. Berninger (Ed.), The varieties of orthographic knowledge I: Theoretical and developmental issues (pp. 173-218). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
7.
Bowers, P.G., Sunseth, K., & Golden, J. (1999). The route between rapid naming and reading progress . Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 31-53.
8.
Bower, P.G., & Swanson, L.B. (1991). Naming speed deficits in reading disability: Multiple measures of a singlar process. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 195-219.
9.
Bowers, P.G., & Wolf, M. (1993a, March). A double-deficit hypothesis for developmental reading disorders. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, New Or-leans.
10.
Bowers, P.G., & Wolf, M. (1993b). Theoretical links among naming speed, precise timing mechanisms and orthographic skill in dyslexia. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 69-85.
11.
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. (1985). Rhyme and reason in reading and spelling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press .
12.
Bruck, M. (1992). Persistence of dyslexics' phonological awareness deficits. Developmental Psychology, 28, 874-886.
13.
Cornwall, A. (1992). The relationship of phonological awareness, rapid naming, and verbal memory to severe reading and spelling disability. Jounal ofLearning Disabilities, 25, 532-538.
14.
Denckla, M., & Rudel, R.G. (1976). Rapid "automatized" naming (RAN): Dyslexia differentiated from other learning disabilities. Neuropsychologia, 14, 471-479.
15.
Felton, R., & Brown, I.S. (1990). Phonological processes as predictors of specific reading skills in children at risk for reading failure. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 39-59.
16.
Levy, B.A., & Hinchley, J. (1990). Individual and developmental differences in the acquisition of reading skills. In T. H. Carr & B. A. Levy (Eds.), Reading and its development: Component skills approaches (pp. 81-128). New York: Academic Press.
17.
Lyon, G.R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.
18.
Manis, F.R., Custodio, R., & Szeszulski, P.A. (1993). Development of phonological and orthographic skill: A 2-year longitudinal study of dyslexic children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56, 64-86.
19.
McBride-Chang, C., & Manis, F.R. (1996). 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. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8, 323-339.
20.
Olson, R.K., Kliegl, R., Davidson, B.J., & Foltz, G. (1985). Individual and developmental differences in teaching disability. In G. E. MacKinnon & T. G. Waller (Eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice (pp. 1-64). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
21.
Olson, R.K., Wise, B., Connors, F., Rack, J., & Fulker, D. (1989). Specific deficits in component reading and language skills: Genetic and environmental influces. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 339-348.
22.
Perfetti, C.A. (1992). The representation problem in reading acquisition . In P. B. Gough, L. C. Ehri, & R. Treiman (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 145-174). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
23.
Rack, J.P., Snowling, M.J., & Olson, R.K. (1992). The nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia: A review. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 29-53.
24.
Rosner, J., & Simon, D. (1971). The auditory analysis test: An initial report . Journal of Learning Disabilities, 4, 384-392.
25.
Shankweiler, D., & Liberman, I.Y. (1972). Misreading: A search for causes. In J. F. Kavanagh & I. G. Mattingly (Eds.), Language by ear and by eye (pp. 293-317). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
26.
Share, D.L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55, 151-218.
27.
Siegel, L.S., & Ryan, E.B. (1988). Development of grammatical sensitivity, phonological and short-term memory skills in normally achieving and learning disabled children . Developmental Psychology, 24, 28-37.
28.
Silveroli, N.J. (1984). Classroom reading inventory (4th edition). Dubuque, OH: William C. Brown.
29.
Stanovich, K.E. (1988). The dyslexic and the garden-variety poor reader: The phonological-core variable-difference model. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21, 590-604.
30.
Stanovich, K.E. (1992). Speculations on the causes and consequences of individual differences in early reading acquisition.
31.
In P. B. Gough, L. C. Ehri, & R. Treiman (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 307-342). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
32.
Stanovich, K.E., Nathan, R.G., & Vala-Rossi, M. (1986). Developmental changes in the cognitive correlates of reading ability and the developmental lag hypothesis . Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 267-283.
33.
Stanovich, K.E., & Siegel, L.S. (1994). Phenotypic performance profile of children with reading disabilities: A regression based test of the phonological-core variable difference model. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 24-53.
34.
Sunseth, K., & Bowers, P.G. (1997, March). The relationship between digit naming speed and orthography in children with and without phonological deficits. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Chicago.
35.
Torgesen, J.K., Wagner, R.K., Rashotte, C.A., Burgess, S., & Hecht, S. (1997). Contributions of phonological awareness and rapid automatic naming ability to the growth of word-reading skills in second-to fifth-grade children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 161-185.
36.
Vellutino, F., & Scanlon, P. (1987). Phonological coding, phonological awareness, and reading ability: Evidence from a longitudinal and experimental study. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 321-363.
37.
Wagner, R.K., & Torgesen, J.K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin,101, 192-212.
38.
Wagner, R.K., Torgesen, J.K., & Rashotte, C.A. (1994). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology , 30, 73-87.
39.
Wagner, R.K., Torgesen, J.K., Rashotte, C.A., Hecht, S., Barker, T.A., Burgess, S.R., Donahue, J., & Garon, T. (1997). Changing causal relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading as children develop from beginning to fluent readers: A five-year longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 33, 468-479.
40.
Walsh, D., Price, G., & Gillingham, M. (1988). The critical but transitory importance of letter naming. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 108-122.
41.
Wechsler, D.A. (1991). Wechsler intelligence scale for children-Revised . San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corp.
42.
Wimmer, H. (1993). Characteristics of developmental dyslexia in a regular writing system. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 1-33.
43.
Wolf, M., Bally, H., & Morris, R. (1986). Automaticity, retrieval processes and reading: A longitudinal study in average and impaired readers. Child Development, 57, 988-1000.
44.
Wolf, M., & Bowers, P.G. (1999). The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental dyslexias. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 415-438.
45.
Woodcock, R.W. (1989). Woodcock reading mastery tests-Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service .
