Children and adolescents who, for their own well-being, need to be separated from their biological family may enter residential care. Most of these young people will have a history of adverse experiences (e.g., neglect or maltreatment by caregivers, frequent changes to previous care arrangements) that can severely impact their psychological development. Social cognition is a key element of social development and is central to young people's adaptation. Inadequate development of social cognition has been linked to mental health and behavior problems, both externalizing and internalizing. The aim of this study was to review current knowledge about the development of social cognition among children and adolescents in residential care, including the variables associated with it. To this end we conducted a scoping review in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) protocol. A total of 14 studies were selected for review and analyzed in depth with respect to four domains of social cognition: emotion processing, social perception, theory of mind, and attributional style. The results showed that the development of social cognition was affected in this population, with deficits being reported in all four domains. Despite the value of the findings obtained to date, there is a need for continued research into social cognition in this vulnerable population, particularly in relation to those domains that have been less widely studied, such as attributional style. Future studies should also aim to control for the effects of different types of residential care and different kinds of childhood adversity, as well as considering the developmental stage at which these experiences occurred and children's age upon entering institutional care.

Traditionally, the evaluation and intervention of cognitive abilities in aging have focused on intellectual cognition, particularly executive functions such as working memory, attention, and processing speed. In contrast, social cognition—crucial for effective daily social functioning, such as following conversations, participating in group interactions, or understanding complex social situations—has received considerably less attention. Scientific evidence suggests that brain and cognitive functioning follow different trajectories in normal and pathological aging.The present study aimed to examine how age and the presence of pathological cognitive impairment predict deficits in the ability to attribute mental states through verbal cues (explicit Theory of Mind, ToM), as well as to analyze differences in this ability between normative and pathological aging. Thirty older adults (aged 58–88) participated, divided into two age- and gender-matched groups: those with normative aging (n = 15) and those with pathological aging (n = 15). Explicit ToM was assessed using an extended version of the Faux Pas Test (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999), which evaluates not only the detection of faux pas but also the attribution of both cognitive and emotional mental states to different characters within complex social situations.Results showed that, among older adults, only the presence of pathological cognitive impairment—and not age—predicted deficits in explicit ToM. When analyzing groups separately, age was associated with improvements in explicit ToM only in normative aging; this effect disappeared in pathological aging, where participants showed marked difficulties in verbally reasoning about social scenarios. These findings may contribute to the early identification of pathological cognitive decline and support the refinement of neuropsychological assessment and intervention protocols for older adults with both normative and pathological aging profiles.