[On social diagnosis and prognosis concerning childhood--experiences in Czechoslovakia. Part I (author's transl)].

The term "social" is defined multidimensionally. For the child, the most important structural unit of the social environment is the family, whose normal function influences the child's development significantly. Familiar disturbances threaten or damage it. From these aspects a social prognosis can be derived. The intuitive assessment of a singular case should be replaced by an objective, generalizable method.