Preface

The second issue of the journal “Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology” for 2025 includes articles, most of which are devoted to various topics of childhood. The issue opens with a collective article by R. J. Mukhamedrakhimov, E. A. Sergienko, D. I. Chernego, E. V. Shabalina, D. I. Kagarmanova, O. I. Palmova, I. A. Arintsina “Comparative analysis of the theory of mind indicators in young children from baby homes with different social-emotional environment and biological families”. The authors focused on the development of a mental model in children, depending on the characteristics of the socio-emotional environment in which children grow up. The study is based on a comparison of the indicators of the mental model in children raised in baby homes and biological families; at the same time, children from baby homes where special work was carried out to optimize the children’s living environment, including the development of necessary skills among staff, were compared with children from baby homes where this work was not carried out. The results of the study confirmed the presence of differences in the level indicators of the mental health model of children depending on the characteristics of the environment, especially evident when comparing children from biological families with children from a baby home, in which no special work was carried out to optimize the children’s living environment. The published materials of the conducted research allow us to see important directions in the work of psychologists with children in the deprivation conditions of institutionalization.