Over the past year, most Ukrainian autistic children have made progress, but at a high price. Many families who have been living abroad have faced aggression from pro-Russian people. Ukrainian society is slowly but steadily getting more tolerant. Ukraine’s international partners and the Ukrainian authorities should step up efforts in inclusion and rehabilitation as soon as possible.
These conclusions are based on the annual survey of the NGO ‘Child with Future’. The survey was conducted from 29 March to 21 April 2025 and covered three categories of citizens:
- Those who have remained in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion:
- Those who have left Ukraine and have returned;
- Those who have left Ukraine and are still abroad.
This methodology was chosen to hear the opinions of Ukrainians. They have been living in different countries, languages and cultural environments for a long time, which naturally affects their worldview and assessment.
Profile of the survey participants
This year, there are almost 500 Ukrainian families, of which only one in ten currently lives abroad, and the rest are in Ukraine. The groups are as follows: Stay, Returned, Abroad.
All three groups of participants live in urban areas, and 95.2% of them are parents of autistic children. The rest have identified themselves as relatives/friends/specialists.
Approximately 20% of families in both the Stay and Returned groups have displaced person status. In the Abroad group, 73% have refugee status.
The majority of respondents living in Ukraine are raising children under the age of ten, and another third of families have autistic children in their teens. The children of the Abroad group (Ukrainians living in other countries) are older: 50% are adolescents, 8% are aged 18 and older.
Key results of the survey
The full version of the 2025 survey is available on the NGO ‘Child with Future’ website, as well as on its Facebook and Telegram pages.
Our first question was: ‘’Has the situation with autism in Ukraine changed at all over the last year?‘’
Approximately 2/3 of the respondents living in Ukraine said they had not felt any changes. Meanwhile, for people who have been abroad and returned to Ukraine, the situation looks more optimistic than for those who have not left Ukraine.
The most pessimistic opinion is held by the Abroad group, where one third believes that the situation with autism in Ukraine has become worse over the past year, but it is also quite balanced (‘No change’ – 50%, ‘Improved’ – 16.7%).
When asked about changes in the child’s condition over the past year, all participants answered almost equally. More than 55% of those living in Ukraine and 66.5% of those currently living abroad noted progress in the child’s condition (10-15% reported regression). However, this progress is accompanied by high anxiety in children, sleep and nutritional disorders. This applies to the vast majority of Ukrainian autistic children, regardless of their residence in Ukraine or the EU.
As for the factors that have directly or indirectly caused these changes and have become the biggest challenges for Ukrainian families over the past year, respondents were divided.
Below is a ranking of the five biggest challenges over the past year for families in each group.
THE FIVE BIGGEST CHALLENGES OF THE LAST YEAR, %.
The Stay group
- Psychological (63.5%)
- Financial issues (57.6%)
- Military actions and threat to life (53.2%)
- Lack of services and professionals for children (49.8%)
- Impossibility of planning (43.7%)
The Returned group
- Impossibility of planning (63.6%)
- Financial issues (62.9%)
- Psychological (55.2%)
- Military actions and threat to life (48.1%)
- Lack of services and professionals for children (47.5%)
The Abroad group
- Psychological (49.9%)
- Impossibility of planning (45.8%)
- Bureaucratic obstacles (43.5%)
- Lack of services and professionals for children (37.9%)
- Problems with a other languages (34.7%)
We also asked the survey participants to rate the level of functioning of the areas that support autistic children in Ukraine. The results are also presented in the format of a rating of the highest and lowest scores in each group.
THE FIVE HIGHEST SCORES (WHAT WORKS WELL)
The Stay group
- Cost of medical services (30.1%)
- Cost of services for autistic children (28.3%)
- Professional level of professionals (26.5%)
- Accessibility of medical services (16%)
- Level of support from compatriots (11.9%)
The Returned group
- Level of support from compatriots (34.8%)
- Professional level of professionals (34%)
- Cost of medical services (33.2%)
- Cost of services for autistic children (29%)
- Accessibility of services for autistic children (27.7%)
The Abroad group
- Attitude of the society towards autistic children in daily life (44.7%)
- Accessibility of medical services (32.4%)
- Municipal support (34%)
- Readiness of educational establishments to work with autistic children (28%)
- Professional level of professionals (24.6%)
THE FIVE LOWEST SCORES (WHAT WORKS BADLY)
The Stay group
- Municipal support (92.3%)
- Availability of infrastructure for working with autistic children (except for educational establishments) (74.7%)
- The state of communication with peers and friends (73.3%)
- State support (72%)
- Readiness of educational establishments to work with autistic children (70.4%)
The Returned group
- Public attitude towards autistic children in daily life (88.1%)
- Readiness of educational establishments to work with autistic children (76.4%)
- The state of communication with peers and friends (68.9%)
- Municipal support (63.3%)
- Availability of infrastructure for working with autistic children (except for educational establishments) (63.2%)
The Abroad group
- Cost of medical services (67.6%)
- Level of support from compatriots (62.2%)
- Cost of services for autistic children (54.3%)
- Accessibility of services for autistic children (53.1%)
- The state of communication with peers and friends (40.2%)
We also asked all survey participants to answer questions about family expectations for 2025. Here are the answers we received:
| Group of participants | Stay | Returned | Abroad |
| It will be harder | 41,7% | 31,3% | 25% |
| It will be easier | 12,5% | 24,5% | 8,3% |
| Not much will change | 45,8% | 44,2% | 66,7% |
At the end of the survey, we asked questions that relate to the experiences and evaluative opinions of each group of participants. This set of questions was small, but we think that it is quite revealing to get the authorities and all of us to know the opinions of Ukrainian families of autistic children.
We asked families living in Ukraine: ‘Should the Ukrainian authorities and international partners do more to rebuild the country’s infrastructure to support people with mental health and developmental disabilities?’ It should be noted that this is not just about autistic people, but a much wider group.
‘Yes, it is important’ – 95.8%. ‘Not important’ – 0%.
When we asked the same group (families living in Ukraine): ‘Has the attitude of Ukrainian society towards people with developmental disabilities and mental health disorders changed over the past year?’ 17.7% of respondents answered ‘Yes, it has become more tolerant’, 70.8% – ‘It has not changed’.
We asked people who went abroad and returned or still live in other countries: ‘Have you faced verbal or physical aggression/provocation from pro-Russian people?’
43% of those still living abroad answered ‘yes’, with 16% of them saying that it was not an isolated incident. Of those who have left and returned to Ukraine, 11.2% answered ‘Yes’.
‘Are you going to return to Ukraine?’ we asked Ukrainians living abroad. 51% of respondents gave an absolutely positive answer. 15.7% of respondents have likely already settled in the host country, because they answered ‘No’.
About the Survey
This survey was conducted via an online questionnaire between March 29 and April 19, 2025. It involved about 500 families. Most of them currently live in Ukraine, while others live in the EU countries where they were forced to move because of the Russian aggression in 2022.
“Child with Future” is a Ukrainian NGO that has been supporting and protecting the rights of autistic children since 2009 and has been a member of the board of Autism Europe since 2012. The organization annually surveys citizens whose lives and professional activities are related to autism and other developmental disabilities. Although they are not representative from a sociological point of view, this approach allows us to obtain generalized assessments and share them with the public.
The “Child with Future” team is sincerely grateful to the governments, NGOs, and citizens of each country that have become a second home and a shelter for Ukrainians from the horrors of the war. We would also like to thank the participants of the survey and wish them a speedy victory for Ukraine and the entire global community.
We hope that this information will be useful for all stakeholders concerned with the mental health of children in Ukraine and other countries.
Sincerely, the team of the NGO “Child with Future”
