Margarita Stankova

• Doctor of Medicine
• associate professor at New Bulgarian University

The aim of this paper is to present the Factor structure of the Bulgarian version of FOCUS on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six. The instrument is based on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth (ICF-CY), and it aims at tracing the effect of therapy on the...

During COVID-19 in Athens, Greece, 535 general education and 170 special education teachers were tested for computer use self-efficacy, ICT competence, and computer attitudes. Demographic and occupational factors impacted computer attitudes and computer use self-efficacy. The GCAS and GCSES showed that general and special education teachers liked c...

Families and caregivers of children with speech and language disorders, as well as with developmental delays, face considerable challenges, such as lack of reliable information and support or of regular access to therapy. This is particularly true when they are in remote places, or with limited resources, while trying to best support the developmen...

The data available for changes in the behavior and emotional state of children with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) in lockdown situations are controversial and scarce. In our research, we compare results before the first COVID-19 lockdown of 21 children with ASD and 21 typically developing children, four to five years of age with those obtained imm...

The rate of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses has peaked in recent years—2000 study found ASD birth-year prevalence of one in 150 eight-year-olds, or 0.67%—which at the time was considerably higher than previous findings. In 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued alarming new data indicating that the rate of autism among American...

The present study compares the performance of children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typical development (TD) in two tasks that require grouping local elements. Thirty-two children participated in the study: ASD group (n = 16) and a control group with TD (n = 16). The results obtained showed a longer response time for dete...

Covid-19 has prompted all educational institutions around the world to move from traditional to virtual classrooms. This study aims to explore parents’ attitudes, expectations and views with regard to using the Internet as a learning environment. The subjects of this international study are the parents of primary school students with and without sp...

The aim of this paper is to provide information regarding diversity in speech and language profiles of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and try to classify these profiles according to the combination of the communication difficulties. Research findings confirm the existence of heterogeneity of communication challenges in ASD across...

Daylight-Saving Time (DST) was introduced in Bulgaria on April 1st, 1979. Since 1997, DST begins at 3 a.m. on the last Sunday in March and lasts until 3 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. In 1999, daylight saving time began at 3 a.m. on the last Sunday in March and lasted until 4 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. The original idea of daylight-sa...

This study looks into the barriers and factors that influence the use of educational computer games (ECGs) that speech and language therapists face in the treatment of children with special educational needs (SEN). 111 respondents were administered a 12- question questionnaire in 2018/2019. The results showed that 87% of all the respondents used ga...

Background: The cultural and language diversity across many European countries presents a range of challenges and opportunities for speech and language therapists and other practitioners working with children with developmental language disorders (DLD) and their families. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore practitioners' perceptions...

The goal of this study is to investigate the use of the Internet as a source of health-related information and information about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to young people. A special focus of the study are the Internet and web resources that the participants prefer to use. An online survey was used to assess the frequency of use o...

Background: The relationship between parental input and child language development has had a complex history. It has become clear that indirect parent training for the parents of children with delayed language development is an important feature of interventions offered by speech and language therapists in the anglophone countries. Yet we know les...

The goal of this study is to investigate the willingness of young people in Bulgaria to search and use health information from Internet sources, and the factors that influenced their decision to participate in telemedicine. The survey questions concerned patient appointments, perceived advantages and barriers to telemedicine, and prior use of the I...

The project main basic concept is to develop a Master’s degree program “eHealth” in New Bulgarian University with the expert knowledge, competencies, and experience of project partners. eHealth literacy combines facets of 6 different literacy skills and applies them to eHealth practice, promotion and care: traditional literacy, health literacy, inf...

The present work analyses a study, conducted among Bulgarian speech and language pathologists - SLTs on the use of educational computer games in their practice, attitudes and perceptions, related to it, as well as the type of deficits they tackle, and its effects and expected outcomes. 103 participants answered 26 questions in a survey, designed by...

Communicating bad news about a malignant entity in the medical profession is often associated with experiences, obstacles, and problems faced by medical professionals that they must overcome in communicating with the patient. The survey includes 232 medical specialists - doctors and nurses with different internships in the profession working in hea...

In the medical profession, communicating bad news about a malignant formation is often associated with experience, obstacles, and problems faced by the medical professionals and related to the communication with the patient. Our survey included 232 medical specialists - doctors and nurses with diverse internship in the profession and working in Bul...

Abstract: The number of studies addressing the latent structure of specific screening and diagnostic tools for autism spectrum conditions is still limited. The current study explored the latent structure of the Bulgarian CAST (Childhood Autism Spectrum Test) in screening for autism in the Bulgarian population. The data were analysed using factor an...

We conducted a detailed study of a case of linguistic talent in the context of autism spectrum disorder, specifically Asperger syndrome. I.A. displays language strengths at the level of morphology and syntax. Yet, despite this grammar advantage, processing of figurative language and inferencing based on context presents a problem for him. The morph...

EV is a child with a talent for learning language combined with Asperger syndrome. EV's talent is evident in the unusual circumstances of her acquisition of both her first (Bulgarian) and second (German) languages and the unique patterns of both receptive and expressive language (in both the L1 and L2), in which she shows subtle dissociations in co...

While adult idiom comprehension has been addressed fairly extensively in experimental research across languages, developmental studies have emerged more recently and have primarily addressed English and few other languages. In this study we tested for the first time idiomatic knowledge in younger children (preschoolers), and older children (third-g...