LO
Dental hygienist — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Dental Assistants · Surgical Assistants · Veterinary Technologists and Technicians · Ophthalmic Medical Technicians · Surgical Technologists · Respiratory Therapists · Acute Care Nurses · Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
In the official classification#
Dental Hygienists
Fit with this page: same job
Job Zone 3: medium preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Dental assistants and therapists
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Oral health therapist
Fit with this page: closest match, not the same job
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 29-1292.00 (Dental Hygienists). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Service OrientationImportant
- CoordinationImportant
- PersuasionImportant
- InstructingImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
Knowledge
- Medicine and DentistryExtremely important
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- PsychologyImportant
- English LanguageImportant
- Education and TrainingImportant
- Computers and ElectronicsImportant
Work activities
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsExtremely important
- Assisting and Caring for OthersVery important
- Performing for or Working Directly with the PublicVery important
- Documenting/Recording InformationVery important
- Making Decisions and Solving ProblemsVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
Abilities
- Problem SensitivityVery important
- Arm-Hand SteadinessVery important
- Finger DexterityVery important
- Near VisionVery important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ExpressionVery important
Essential skills
- Active ListeningVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- WritingImportant
- MonitoringImportant
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 5 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 4 match at least one. 1 are not in O*NET's list for this occupation. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Cleaning and scalingTreat dental problems or diseases.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Assisting and Caring for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Dentist
- Periodontal assessment and chartingExamine mouth, teeth, gums, or related facial structures.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Dentist
- Taking and screening X-raysProcess x-rays or other medical images.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Controlling Machines and Processes · O*NET 31.0
- Patient educationProvide health and wellness advice to patients, program participants, or caregivers.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Providing Consultation and Advice to Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Dietitian · Veterinarian
- Working within scopeNone of the activities O*NET lists for this occupation covers this task.
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
Business and Professions Code section 1908
(b)(1) · defines · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Working within scope
2009-01-01 · the record →Guidance on Scope of Practice
1.3 and the dental hygienist task list · must · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Working within scope · Patient education
2025-11-01 · the record →Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 3 backed by a verified event, 2 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.