IntroductionAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a persistent neurodevelopmental condition with early childhood onset. 1 PDD is often used similarly with the term ASD and consists of five subtypes; (1) autism disorder (AD); (2) Asperger's Disorder; (3) Rett's disorder; (4) childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD); and (5) pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). The most popular and best studied form of ASD is AD.2 Autistic disorder is characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, as well as complex sensory alterations. These signs all begin before a child is three years old.3-4 Autism affects many parts of the brain; how this occurs is not understood 5 . It is a highly variable brain development disorder 6 that first appears during infancy or childhood and generally follows a steady course without remission. 7Overt symptoms gradually begin after the age of six months, become established by age two or three years, 8 and tend to continue through adulthood, although often in more muted form. 5,9 Patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are the individuals with Background and Objective: Autism is a persistent neurodevelopmental condition. This study aimed to investigate carious and periodontal problems among a sample of children with autism in Erbil, Iraq. Methods: A total of 44 autistic children aged 1-14 years (30 males and 14 females) attending Erbil, Iraq Autism Centers were enrolled in the study. The control group consisted of 44 non-autistic children chosen from different schools which represent different geographical locations in Erbil city in the period between September, 1 st 2014 to January, 1 st 2015 to have matched age, sex and socioeconomic status. Each patient received an assessment of caries prevalence. Other conditions assessed were oral hygiene and gingival health status. The t-test of significance was used to compare groups. Results: Data analyzed for the present study comprised observations from a group of children (cases = 44) diagnosed with autism matched with healthy children (controls = 44). The autistic children had lower decayed, missing or filled teeth than unaffected children with nonsignificant differences. The mean decayed-missing-filled teeth in primary teeth (dmft) of the autistic group was 11.57 ± 11.41 while that of the controls was 15.36 ± 12.81. The mean Decayed-Missing-Filled teeth in permanent teeth (DMFT) of the autistic group was 2.36 ± 3.86 and 2.89 ± 3.78 in the controls. With advancing age, the value of decayed, missing and filled teeth increased. Almost all of the autistic children had fair oral hygiene (1.291 ± 0.89) and had gingivitis. Conclusion: Autistic children displayed lower dmft, DMFT scores compared to control group, fair oral hygiene level, and had gingivitis than did the unaffected control children. Hence, non-autistic children need further consideration.

Background and Objectives: A supernumerary tooth is an additional tooth to the normal series and can be located in almost any region of the dental arch. The objective of the study was to investigate the prevalence of supernumerary teeth and the distribution of the cases according to the demographic data and characteristics among patients attending a College of Dentistry in Erbil, Iraq. Methods: This descriptive and retrospective study was performed on 1233 patients (658 males 53.4% and 575 females 46.6%) ranging in age from 3 to 14 years old during the period 2017-2018. The characteristics of supernumerary teeth were noted and diagnosed during the clinical and radiographic examination. The demographic variables including age and gender was recorded for each patient. During statistical analysis Fisher's exact test was used. p value of less than .05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Only eight supernumerary teeth were detected in 1233 patients (0.6 %). 7 patients were males and 1 patient was female with a 1.14:1 male/female ratio (p =0.089). Among supernumeraries: most of them 5 teeth (62.5%) were found in the maxillary anterior, and 7 teeth (87.5%) were conical in morphology. All the supernumerary teeth occurred as single tooth within the oral cavity. Regarding eruption status within the arch, all supernumerary teeth (100%) had erupted. All supernumerary teeth (100%) were extracted. Conclusion: The identification of this anomaly provides a clue towards the possibility of any complication, pathologies, other related dental anomalies, syndromes and familial association in Erbil, Iraq.