The nativist intervention emphasizes the importance of children's innate abilities and their interpretations of language.
Emphasis is on a teacher's response to a child's use of language rather than on direct teaching.
Language is believed to be aquired when a child discovers relationships between surface levels of language and deeper structures and meanings of language as interpreted by the child. This approach relates to the Constructivist Model of instruction, which stresses interrelationships, holistic instruction, and children developing their own meaning in response to experiences rather than accepting a meaning that is someone else's reality. In contrast, a behavioral intervention is direct and systematic. It believes that language behavior is learned and stresses the importance of context. Teachers identify skills, design activities to allow students use those skills, provide modelling, give opportunities for practice, reinforce correct usage, assess level of mastery.