This paper describes the Incomplete Stories Test (IST) adaptation to assessment of social competence in Brazilian children living under risk situation. The IST consists of fifteen incomplete stories that assess social competence through three subscales, trust, self-efficacy and active coping. A hundred school children, ranged from six to nine years old, participated in this study. The analysis demonstrated sex and age-groups significant difference, in which the girls and the oldest group achieved better results than the others, being more socially competent. This study permits to consider that characteristics of trust, self-efficacy, and active coping could be analyzed as social competence attributes, which can serve to subsidiate the planning of intervention programs that aim to develop social competence. So, the IST consists in an important measure, that can be useful as an assessment resource to these programs.
Social competence; Risk; Measure; Intervention
