Submissions

Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Authors are required to abide by the ethical standards of the journal and complete an Authorship Statement. They may publish their manuscripts free of charge after approval by the editors. Publications in the journal are of two types:

1. Research articles and studies, which undergo a double-blind (anonymous) peer-review procedure. The guidelines described in this section apply to this type of publication.
2. Publication pieces, editor's pages, presentations of new books, events and projects, etc., which are approved by a decision of the chief and duty editors of the respective issue.

Requirements for the content of articles:

Articles must contain original, original research of the author's own, making innovative contributions to the relevant scientific field. Their main purpose cannot be to retell or repeat results already published by other researchers. Claims in the text need to be scientifically substantiated. A scientific style of presentation shall be used. Articles need to have clearly identified parts: introduction, research methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, conclusion. Literature sources used in the text should preferably be books and articles included in the global referencing, indexing and evaluation system. Citation of Internet sources is undesirable, but if still necessary, it should be mentioned in the notes as a URL to material in pdf format.

Peer review:

Submitted manuscripts that have been approved by the Editor-in-Chief in terms of topic, originality, and technical requirements undergo evaluation by anonymous and independent experts (peer-review). For greater objectivity of the evaluations, the double-blind option is chosen, in which the author and the reviewers are anonymous to each other. The Editor-in-Chief sends the articles to two independent reviewers for review. In the submitted version of the articles, all data pointing to the author of the article or his/her place of work are deleted.

Manuscript acceptance procedure:

1. The author is required to send: 2 versions of the manuscript of the article, illustrations (tables, diagrams, photos, etc.) as separate files, signed Declaration of Authorship.

- The article should be sent in two versions - author's and anonymous. The two versions are identical, but the anonymous version lacks data that can identify the author (names, place of work, self-citations with attribution, etc.). The file names are formed by the two author names, the content designation (main-text, figure1-fig1, table1-tabl1, etc.), year, number, abbreviation - SSPL. The name of the anonymous file is formed in the same way, replacing the author's name with the word ANONIM.

For example: IvelinaAsenova-text-2020-1-SSPL

              ANONIM-text-2020-1-SSPL

- The declaration of authorship should be printed, completed, signed and scanned as a .doc or .pdf file and sent with the article files. If the paper is co-authored, a Declaration from each author is required.

2. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the submitted files for correctness. If they do not meet the requirements for originality and unpublishability of the material, conformity to the journal's subject matter, and compliance with publication requirements, the Editor-in-Chief may return the material to the author without admitting it for peer review.
3. Upon receipt of correct required files, the Editor-in-Chief, in conjunction with the issue's duty editors, will assign two reviewers to whom an anonymous manuscript will be sent. The author and reviewers are bilaterally anonymous. The reviewers declare no conflict of interest. Submissions undergo an anti-plagiarism check.
4. Upon receipt of the completed reviews, the Duty Editors of the issue decide to publish, return for correction, or reject the article. The Editor-in-Chief informs the author of the decision. The author is required to make the requested corrections (if necessary) within the specified time limit or withdraw his/her contribution, in both cases informing the journal editors.
5. After acceptance, the article goes through a proofreader, an English translator for the abstract, and a final review and approval of the proof by the author.

Technical layout requirements:

The length of the manuscript is assumed to be between 11,000 and 46,800 characters (6 and 26 pages), including all illustrations. The manuscript may be in Bulgarian or English. The layout is in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx format), font/Font - Times New Roman, 12 pt, new line is formed with Enter/Tab.

The structure of the manuscript includes title, author(s), institution in Bulgarian and English; abstract in Bulgarian in 80-300 characters (according to the length of the manuscript); 5 keywords in English; main text; bibliography; appendices. At the end of the article, a text "ABOUT THE AUTHOR" is formed, which indicates the author's scientific degree and position, name, place of work, areas of scientific interests, number of publications, postal address and e-mail address. The main text must respect the norms of literary language and spelling - punctuation, new line, etc.

Tables, graphs, figures, diagrams, photos, etc. should be clearly labeled in the body text and each should be sent once more and as a separate, stand-alone file in a single email. Tables are in .xls or .xls format and diagrams, illustrations, charts, figures, photos, etc. are in .jpg or .tiff format and a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. The captions of tables, diagrams, illustrations, schematics, etc. shall be written above them in italic type at 11 pt, and the captions of figures and photographs shall be placed below them. Only the word 'figure' is abbreviated (Fig.), all other titles are written out in full. Examples of correct caption formation: Table 1. Results of the control group; Diagram 1. Results of the control group.; Fig. 1. Results of the control group.; etc.

Notes should be avoided. If their use is necessary, they should be minimal in number, consecutively numbered, and footnoted rather than placed at the end of the text.

Citation in the main text requires the author's surname in Latin, the year and the page: (Vutova, 2011: 73), regardless of the language of the publication. If there are two or three authors, they are given as (Ivanov, Nikolov, Atanasova, 2005: 204); if there are more than three authors: (Stoeva et al., 2006: 58); if the publication is mentioned in the main text but without including an exact citation: (Geraskov, 1945). When a citation longer than 40 words has to be used exceptionally, it is formatted as a block citation (indented on both sides, 11 point font, italics).

The bibliography includes only the literature cited in the statement. The formatting of the bibliography should conform to the American Psychological Association (APA) standard. Writing the bibliography according to the APA standard requires the following arrangement:

The name of the author(s). (Year of publication). The title of the source. The place of publication.

Additional information about APA: https://apastyle.apa.org

Arranged alphabetically by word order and not numbered, with each source on a new line. Sources (normative documents, archival units, etc.) and references (scientific literature) should be presented in separate lists (with indentation between them). The order in which the bibliography should be written is as follows: each word should be written in Latin along with the year - the material should be written in the original language - in square brackets it should be written entirely in Latin by transliteration.

If the title has an official translation into English, it is first written in Bulgarian and the official English translation is written in the middle brackets (e.g. this is the case for laws and regulations).

For publications translated into Bulgarian, the names of the authors (where in the original language they are in Latin) in square brackets are written in Latin in the same way.

Transliteration into Bulgarian is done according to the Transliteration Act: https://www.lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135623667. Accordingly, transliterations in Serbian: http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/serbian_conversion.htm; in Russian: https://2cyr.com/?7; in Greek: http://gr.translit.cc/.

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

 The undersigned

...................................................................................................................................................................

(title, full legal name)

..................................................................................................................................................................

(university or scientific institution / faculty / department)

contact phone number ..........................................

Email  ...............................................

Address for correspondence ...................................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................................

I declare that the text with the title .........................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................................................,

which I propose for publication in the journal "Special Education and Speech-Language Therapy“ has not been offered for publication, nor has it been published in any other publication, including under any other title.

I declare that I am offering my own original authorship and take responsibility for the authorship of the publication. All sources used are correctly cited and described, and their authors are acknowledged.

I understand that I am criminally liable if I declare false information and/or if plagiarism is found.

........................................                                                       ................................................

Date                                                                                        Signature of declarant