ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and how they are used by practitioners across Europe, which was the focus of the work of working group 1 in Cooperation in Science and Technology Action IS1406. The evidence base relies on four main pillars: the external evidence, the practitioner perspective, the informed patient, and other drivers such as economic and social policy, cultural context, and training. The origins of several treatment ingredients and descriptions of how they work on targeted areas to achieve desired outcomes can be seen in various theories of language acquisition and theories outlining proposed deficits in DLD. A deeper understanding of theory of intervention is necessary to allow clinicians to appropriately choose an intervention to match a given child’s profile, particularly important given the known heterogeneity in profiles of children with language impairments.
