Examples are provided in this discussion to indicate the nature of professional judgment in a teaching situation likely to be encountered by most child care workers or preschool teachers. Specifically, this predicament involves a problem in turn taking among 4-year-olds. As used here, the term "professional judgment" refers to cognitive processes involving the use of advanced knowledge (such as diagnosing and analyzing events, weighing alternative courses of action, and estimating the potential long-term consequences of momentary actions and decisions). Types of professional judgment processes a teacher might engage in can be thought of in terms of three interrelated categories: (1) skills and knowledge that could be taught in the problem situation, (2) clinical questions related to individuals in the problem incident, and (3) curriculum and management concerns. The nature of professional judgments can be clearly seen when such judgments are contrasted with nonprofessional and unprofessional responses, which might be made by untrained individuals. (RH)