You have the right to remain silent: The ability of adolescents with developmental language disorder to understand their legal rights

Anne Marie Lieser; Denise Van der Voort; Tammie J Spaulding

doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105920

You have the right to remain silent: The ability of adolescents with developmental language disorder to understand their legal rights

J Commun Disord. 2019 Nov-Dec:82:105920. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105920. Epub 2019 Aug 6.

Authors

Anne Marie Lieser¹, Denise Van der Voort¹, Tammie J Spaulding²

Affiliations

¹ University of Connecticut, United States.
² University of Connecticut, United States. Electronic address: tammie.spaulding@uconn.edu.

PMID: 31415938
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105920

Abstract

Purpose: This study compared Miranda Rights comprehension of adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typically developing (TD) peers.

Method: Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights (Grisso, 1998) was administered to 20 adolescents with DLD and 20 age-matched TD peers.

Results: The DLD group exhibited significantly greater difficulty in understanding and appreciating Miranda Rights than their TD peers. Adolescents with DLD were 7 times more likely to be at risk of failing to sufficiently understand the Miranda warnings than adolescents in the TD group.

Discussion: Adolescents with DLD are particularly vulnerable to failing to understand Miranda Rights and the consequences of waiving them. Future work should determine if there is a link between difficulty comprehending legal rights and the high prevalence of adolescents with language disorder in juvenile detention facilities.

Keywords: Adolescents; Comprehension; Language disorder; Miranda rights.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Civil Rights*
Comprehension*
Female
Humans
Juvenile Delinquency / legislation & jurisprudence
Language Development Disorders / psychology*
Language Tests
Male
Prisons