ABSTRACT
The amount and variety of complex syntax a child produces are heavily influenced by the amount and variety of complex sentences the child hears, which is in turn correlated with the education level of the caregiver While there may be some dispute as to whether there are meaningful individual differences in the acquisition of simple syntax, the influence of socioeconomic status, vocabulary size, and processing capacity clearly re-emerge when discussing complex syntax acquisition. However, it is also the case that there exists a wide range of individual differences in the acquisition of language. The fact that particular qualities of the input may enhance or accelerate the acquisition of syntactic frames is good news for those who are interested in assisting children who are at-risk for delayed language development for one reason or another. As children’s utterances lengthen, they begin producing early utterances that can more readily be assigned to adult-like syntactic frames.
