We intended 10 find the most accurate standard of skeletal moturity of the wrist and hand for a Chilean sample of children (0 - 6 years) from the lower middle and low socioeconomic Strata of the Northern Area of Santiago. The widely used Greulich and Pyle Atlas turned out to be misleading. The Tanner and Whitehouse (TW) method and the values for the English population agreed with scores for Chilean female children and were a little over the values for Chilean male children. The TW method seems to adapt better although it is necessary to hove national standards for a correct assessment.
