[How to seize and rate a social hearing handicap caused by hearing disorders (author's transl)].

A psychological test to size the quantitative social hearing handicap was developed by High and Fairbanks as a normative anemnesis. The splitting of the social hearing handicap index (SHHI) in the components of deafness and selection ability shows the importance of the selection ability for social hearing. Comparing the pure tone audiogramm with the SHHI of 54 patients demonstrates the low correlation of the audiogramm with the SHHI and especially its selection component. Only when the hearing loss is severe the selection component will correspond to the threshold.