Objectives: One of the frontiers of craniofacial surgery is understanding whether patients have truly achieved an improved quality of life with reconstruction. With the advent of standardized, validated, and freely available quantitative methods for assessing psychosocial outcomes in children and adults, the ability to evaluate and compare longitudinal psychosocial changes in children with craniofacial anomalies have become accessible in the past decade.
Materials and Methods: Multi-institutional prospective, cross-sectional studies in psychosocial outcomes of children under active treatment for craniofacial anomalies.
Results: Age, cultural adaptation, and surgical burden are important components in the psychosocial functioning of children and young adults with craniofacial anomalies. One of the major difficulties in diagnosing and treating at risk children is the disparity between parental and child perceptions.
Conclusions: The future of craniofacial surgery requires a thorough understanding of surgical and non-surgical factors that ultimately contribute to the psychosocial functioning of children with craniofacial anomalies.

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