Table_1_Re-analyzing and confirming a differential use of redintegration in students with mild and borderline intellectual disabilities.DOCX

While numerous studies on verbal working memory have investigated the capacity of the phonological loop and the effectiveness of rehearsal as one core process for maintaining the memory trace, the reconstruction of the memory trace from long-term memory, called redintegration, has been studied less thoroughly. This holds particularly for the population of students with special educational learning needs and mild and borderline intellectual disabilities (MBID). In a previous study, we found a differential developmental relation between the effectiveness of redintegration and vocabulary size, counter-intuitively suggesting that students with MBID tend to show less effective redintegration with higher vocabulary size. However, differential item functioning (DIF) in the picture naming task may have biased the result. Therefore, the current study is a re-analysis of this interaction controlling for DIF in the vocabulary measure. To this end, the items of the picture naming task (k = 95) were analyzed through a Rasch model, and k = 29 biased items were excluded. The resulting corrected vocabulary score was used to predict the redintegration effectiveness, comparing students with and without MBID. The interaction remains significant, supporting the original finding that students with MBID have a differential developmental pattern and are less able to make adequate use of a growing vocabulary when reconstructing traces in their working memory. Implications of this result for the understanding of MBID and further research directions are discussed.

现有诸多关于言语工作记忆的研究均围绕语音回路（phonological loop）容量以及作为维持记忆痕迹核心过程之一的复述效能展开，而针对从长时记忆中重构记忆痕迹的复元（redintegration）过程的研究则相对不足。这一现状在特殊教育学习需求学生以及轻度与边界性智力障碍（mild and borderline intellectual disabilities, MBID）群体中尤为显著。
在先前的一项研究中，我们发现复元效能与词汇量之间存在差异化的发展关联，且反直觉地表明：MBID学生的词汇量越高，其复元效能反而越低。但此前研究中的图片命名任务存在项目功能差异（differential item functioning, DIF），可能对结果造成了偏倚。
因此，本研究针对该交互效应进行了重新分析，在词汇量测量中控制了项目功能差异的影响。为此，本研究通过拉什模型（Rasch model）对图片命名任务的95个项目进行了分析，并剔除了其中29个存在偏倚的项目。
将修正后的词汇量得分用于预测复元效能，并对比了MBID学生与非MBID学生的表现。结果显示，该交互效应依然显著，验证了初始研究结论：MBID学生存在差异化的发展模式，且在工作记忆中重构记忆痕迹时，难以充分利用不断增长的词汇量。
本研究最后讨论了该结果对理解MBID的启示以及未来的研究方向。