The paper focuses on the growth and development of special education for learning disabled children in Chile with particular emphasis on the contribution of child psychiatry and pediatric neurology departments of hospitals and the contribution of universities in training specialists. Initial sections provide a background on primary education in Chile and a review of socio-cultural characteristics which affect the types of problems encountered in special education in underdeveloped countries. A third section outlines the history of special education in Chile. A final section describes the functioning of the special education system in terms of diagnosis and rehabilitation of learning problems, a case study of a child with reading problems, methods of diagnosis and evaluation, and research in such areas as teaching reading and clinical investigations. A growing interest in diagnosis, treatment, and research in reading problems is attributed to high incidence of early school failure and lack of research on and materials for Spanish learning disabled students. (SBH)