This paper explores children’s interpretation of scopally equivocal sentences comprising negation and quantification. Using Relevance Theory, and novel tests with 5-year-olds, it reveals that children formerly appeared to foster surface scope interpretations as they founded their decisions on the contextually most apt information. It is argued that children are not unlike adults in scopal options licensed by their grammar, but insofar as they rate “salience” higher as general “relevance” indication than the Charity Maxim, albeit for adults, the Charity Maxim is at least evenly apposite.