ABSTRACT
Interest in special education began in Chile in 1852 with the creation of a school for deaf children, which subsequently added a class for blind children. In 1928 and 1929, another three schools for children with behavior disorders and a school for blind children were opened and in 1945 several schools for mentally retarded (MR) children were established, along with a few special classes for them within the regular schools. In the 1960s special schools annexed to pediatric hospitals were opened that served as diagnostic and rehabilitation centers for learning disabled children and for teacher training as well. These “clinical” special schools were followed in the decades of 1960s and 1970s by a great number of new special schools for learning disabled (LD) and MR children and for “differential groups” inside the schools. In 1980 there was a change in the orientation in the field of public special education toward the creation of support teams and special classes within the regular schools for LD children. In Venezuela, special types of schools for blind, deaf, mute, and “abnormal” children were founded in 1912, and in 1948 special education classrooms were created in the regular schools (Feldman & Feldman, 1981). Special classes for academically “backward” and mentally retarded children were set up in Uruguay in 1928 (Lorenzo, 1973).
