The Department of Special Education was formed in the academic year 1983/1984 with the original name of Department of Defectology. Since 1993 it has been called the Department of Special Education, since 2013 – the Department of Special Education and Speech Therapy, and since 2020 – again the Department of Special Education.

The Department of Defectology, together with the Departments of Pre-school Education and Primary School Education, is in the basis of the newly established Faculty of Primary and Pre-school Education at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski in 1984, later renamed the Faculty of Education Studies and the Arts (FESA).

Heads of the Department:

1984 – 1988 – Prof. Stefan Mutafov, PhD, Dsc – famous Bulgarian doctor, scientist and professor of defectology at Sofia University, professor of anthropology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and professor of neurology at the University of Medical Sciences, Sofia

1989 – 1992 – Prof. Dr. Georgi Angushev, who was also the Dean of the Faculty of Primary and Preschool Pedagogy in the same period

1993 – 1995 – Prof. Dsc. Vladimir Radoulov

1995 – 2000 – prof. Dr. Vanya Matanova

2001 – 2011 – prof. Dr. Katerina Karadzhova

2011-2015 – Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ivaylo Petrov

2015 – 2019 – Prof. Dsc. Tsvetanka Tsenova

2019 – 2024 – Prof. Dr. Neda Balkanska

Since December 2024 – Prof. Dsc. Mira Tzvetkova-Arsova

Over the years, the department has been staffed by well-known Bulgarian lecturers and scientists: Prof. Dr. Georgi Angushev, Prof. Dr. Zlatko Dobrev, Prof. Dr. Angelina Baltadzhieva, Prof. Dsc. Vladimir Radoulov and a number of other specialists, who were the basis of the later established Department of Social Education and Social Work at FESA.

The Department was the initiator and the driving force for the establishment of the Journal “Special Education and Speech and Language Therapy” – https://fnoi.uni-sofia.bg/magazine/index.php/special-edu_language-therapy The professors from the Department work in the Therapeutic Room of the Faculty.