Celebrating the Life and Career of John H. Flavell

At the April 2026 meeting of the Cognitive Development Society in Montreal, we held a symposium celebrating the life and career of John Flavell. The papers in this special section are modified versions of the presentations delivered at that symposium. This introductory article traces Flavell’s intellectual development and academic career, highlighting his foundational contributions to the study of cognitive development, including work on Piagetian theory, metamemory and metacognition, perspective taking, the appearance–reality distinction, children’s understanding of thinking and consciousness, and theory of mind.