Cases That Prove the Need for Forensic Speech-Language Pathology
- EJT Communication Consultant
- Dec 21, 2025
- 3 min read
Why Communication Failures — Not Intelligence — Drive Many Legal Outcomes
When courts evaluate statements, confessions, or testimony, the focus is often on truthfulness, intent, or cognitive capacity. What is frequently overlooked is a quieter but equally powerful factor: communication ability.
Speech-language pathologists are uniquely trained to evaluate how people understand, process, formulate, and express language under pressure. In legal settings, those skills directly affect Miranda comprehension, statement reliability, testimony consistency, and a person’s ability to participate meaningfully in their defense.
The following high-profile cases illustrate why forensic speech-language pathology is essential — and why psychology alone is often insufficient.
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Miranda Rights Are a Language Task — Not a Memory Test
Miranda warnings rely on:
• Receptive language comprehension
• Understanding abstract vocabulary
• Processing complex sentence structure
• Applying information in real time
Many individuals can repeat Miranda rights but cannot:
• Paraphrase them accurately
• Explain their implications
• Apply them to the current situation
This distinction matters legally. Repetition is not comprehension.
When courts rely on a simple “Do you understand?” they are often mistaking compliance for understanding — a classic communication error.
A forensic SLP evaluates whether an individual truly grasped the language demands of the warning, not whether they appeared cooperative.
When Limited Language Becomes Legal Vulnerability
This case is frequently discussed in terms of coercion and juvenile susceptibility. What receives far less attention is the communication profile visible throughout the interrogation.
Key communication red flags include:
• Extremely limited narrative generation
• Difficulty answering open-ended questions
• High yes-bias and acquiescence
• Reliance on interviewer scaffolding
• Inability to correct inaccurate assumptions
From an SLP perspective, the issue is not whether the individual wanted to comply — it is whether he had the language capacity to independently generate, revise, and defend a narrative.
This is squarely within the scope of forensic speech-language pathology.
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Functional Communication Capacity in the Legal System
This case underscores an often-ignored issue: the ability to navigate the legal system itself.
Legal participation requires:
• Understanding procedural language
• Asking clarifying questions
• Advocating for oneself
• Comprehending consequences
• Communicating distress appropriately
Functional communication deficits — especially in young adults — can severely impair a person’s ability to protect their own rights, even when no formal diagnosis is present.
Forensic SLPs evaluate real-world communication capacity, not just test scores.
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Why Psychology Alone Is Not Enough
Psychological evaluations assess:
• IQ
• Mental health
• General cognition
Speech-language pathology evaluates:
• Language comprehension
• Expressive precision
• Pragmatics and social communication
• Narrative ability
• Language under stress
A person can test within normal cognitive limits and still:
• Misunderstand legal language
• Fail to track complex questioning
• Sound inconsistent or unreliable
• Appear evasive when they are linguistically overloaded
These are communication failures, not moral or intellectual ones.
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When Attorneys Should Consult a Forensic SLP
A forensic speech-language pathologist should be consulted when a client:
• Appears compliant but confused
• Gives inconsistent or fragmented statements
• Has a history of TBI, learning disability, or language disorder
• Struggles to explain events in their own words
• Waived rights without clear understanding
• Is a juvenile or vulnerable adult
Early consultation can change the trajectory of a case.
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The Bottom Line
Many wrongful convictions and disputed statements are not the result of guilt or deceit — they are the result of unrecognized communication breakdowns.
Forensic speech-language pathology brings precision to questions courts already ask:
• Did this person truly understand?
• Could they reliably communicate?
• Was their statement linguistically independent?
Those answers matter!
Learn more about forensic speech-language pathology here.
About the Author
Erica Thomas, MS, CCC-SLP is a forensic speech-language pathologist specializing in communication reliability, Miranda comprehension, testimony analysis, and record-based forensic consulting. She works with attorneys nationwide on criminal, civil, and civil rights matters.
Explore our Forensic Speech-Language Pathology Resources for Attorneys, including evidence-based checklists, guides, and tools focused on communication reliability, cognitive-communication, and case support.
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