The developments in child psychiatry in the past 25 years have been encouraging but represent only a prelude to the significant work that must be done relatively soon to meet the needs of the contemporary child. Before 1940, the desirability of multidisciplinary study of the child had been well established, and child guidance clinics had appeared. Until the 1960's, however, the focus was on the clinical study of individual patients and families, rather than population studies, and generalizations were made from the former to the latter. Concern for the poor and the black was dormant for too long in the past quarter century; it is in such areas as poverty and racism that serious psychological and organic problems in children occur. Specifically, research in child development must be concerned with many important factors, including (1) the "test bias" in interpreting results of achievement tests; (2) the prenatal and paranatal factors that influence brain development; (3) nutritional factors, before and after birth; (4) the psychosocial environment of the child, especially the family environment; (5) the influence and role of school; and (6) the effects of racism. (WD)