| Summary: | The traditional assumption that the Wechsler Intelligence scales Picture Arrangement
(PA) and Comprehension (COMP) subtests are interpretable as measures of social
competence was tested. Although the assumption has existed for over half a century,
there is a lack of evidence to support this contention. Performance on the PA and
COMP subtests of the WISC-III was correlated with various indices of social
functioning, using multiple sources of information (i.e., participant self-report, teacher
report and peer nominations within a normal school-aged population) in a sample of
74, eight to twelve year old children. After general intelligence was partialled out,
performance on the COMP subtest related to children's perception of social selfefficacy,
and performance on the PA subtest was related to assertive problem solving
strategies. No other social measure correlated significantly with performance on the
PA and COMP subtests. Results of regression analyses reiterated the correlational
analyses suggesting that although there was some modest predictive power for the
PA subtest to predict assertive problem solving strategies and for performance on the
COMP subtest to predict a child's perception of social self-efficacy, performance on
the PA and COMP subtests do not predict the majority of the social skills that were
included in the present investigation.
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