This is the third symposium to be published in JINS. The idea for the symposium arose following the presentation of a group of papers on pediatric head injury at the February 1996 meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society in Chicago. During that paper session, speakers shared not only their research data, but also the methodological and conceptual dilemmas involved in evaluating the consequences of head injury in children. Several of these dilemmas occur as themes throughout the set of articles presented in the symposium.