III. dental development from birth to 16 years.

Tooth eruption in 212 randomly selected Swedish urban children has been investigated from birth to 16 years as part of a prospective longitudinal study of growth and development. The ages and the order of eruption of the deciduous and permanent teeth were in agreement with those reported in other contemporary studies. The good agreement with another longitudinal study of the tooth eruption of Swedish children born during the same period is an indication that the present sample was representative of contemporary Swedish children. In the deciduous dentition a probable male advancement was found, while girls were consistently the advanced sex as regards the eruption of permanent teeth. Sex differences have also been found in the relation between dental development and other criteria of somatic growth and development. The correlations were low or moderate with, in general, higher values for girls than boys. A positive association with somatic growth was observed both for the deciduous and the permanent dentition but with intriguing sex differences for various body measurements.