Research.
I explore the relationship between adolescent development, legal understanding, and the language we use to communicate our rights.
EXPLORE THE STUDY ↓Can someone meaningfully exercise a right they do not fully understand?
LAW × PSYCHOLOGY × LANGUAGELost in Translation:
Assessing Miranda Rights Comprehension and Linguistic Vulnerability in Adolescents
How well do teenagers understand the rights meant to protect them during police questioning? This independent study combines a literature review with original survey data from 307 adolescents aged 13–18 to examine understanding of Miranda warnings, perceived confidence, and age-related differences.
Its central concern is the gap between being told one's rights and being able to understand and use them.
Methods.
A closer look at what adolescents know—and what they think they know.
Literature review
Examined research on language impairment among justice-involved youth, Miranda comprehension, false confessions, and juror perceptions.
Original survey
A 17-item anonymous online survey of 307 participants ages 13–18, conducted through Centiment on December 29–30, 2025.
Comprehension assessment
Six multiple-choice questions tested core Miranda rights; additional items assessed familiarity, confidence, and legal-learning preferences.
Statistical analyses were assisted by Claude, as disclosed in the manuscript. Interpretations and conclusions were drawn by the author.
What the data revealed.
Three findings stand out from the six-question Miranda comprehension assessment.
Being warned does not guarantee understanding.
175 participants (57%) answered fewer than six of the six rights questions correctly. Only 132 (43%) achieved a perfect score.
Understanding increases with age.
Age was positively associated with comprehension (Spearman r = 0.187, p = .001). Thirteen-year-olds averaged 4.12 correct answers; sixteen-year-olds averaged 5.29.
Feeling confident is not the same as knowing.
Self-reported confidence did not correlate significantly with actual comprehension (r = 0.013, p = .822), raising concerns about relying on a teenager's assertion that they understand their rights.
Beyond the warning.
Legal protection depends on meaningful comprehension—not simply recitation.
The findings support the case for more developmentally appropriate legal explanations, objective comprehension checks, and legal-rights education accessible to younger adolescents.
A necessary distinction: the survey measured knowledge of Miranda rights, not participants' clinical language abilities or behavior during actual interrogations. The paper's discussion of linguistic vulnerability and false confessions also draws on prior published research; those outcomes were not directly tested in the survey.
Read the research.
Lost in Translation: Assessing Miranda Rights Comprehension and Linguistic Vulnerability in Adolescents
FULL MANUSCRIPT / PDF17 pages ↗OPEN THE COMPLETE RESEARCH PAPERDr. Aliza Spruch-Feiner
Clinical Psychologist / Research Mentor
This independent research project was conducted under Dr. Spruch-Feiner's guidance, with support from the Horizon Academic Research Program in connecting the author with a mentor.
MANUSCRIPT STATUSIndependent research manuscript. No publication or peer-review status is claimed here.