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Introduction. Research on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and on educational technologies addressing behavioral challenges in Ukraine remains limited. Likewise, little is known about digital tools that could support parents of children with special educational needs (SEN), a gap made more pressing by the ongoing war. To address this gap, we collected data from two groups: Ukrainian families raising children with SEN, regarding their resilience, and educators enrolled in the first Ukrainian-language ABA courses, regarding the educational tools they utilize. These courses were designed to maximize global access to ABA through technology-mediated instruction. The findings underscored the need for interdisciplinary tools (e.g., mind maps and AI-based technologies) that could facilitate communication and collaboration among educators and parents while supporting behavior-analytic instructional practices. Mind-mapping tools primarily serve to provide instructions and guidelines for educators and parents on working with children, and to support the development of individualized lesson plans. They enable educators to visualize educational material, structure information, plan their work with children, and design game-based algorithms that account for a range of situations and support skill acquisition. They help parents organize the child’s daily routine, foster independence, prepare the child for new life-situations. For children, they facilitate socialization and help model situations that promote independence across diverse bilingual settings.

Methodology. The study adopts a comprehensive approach to examining the potential for integrating digital technologies into programs aimed at developing social communication in children with ASD. A range of theoretical research methods was employed, including analysis and synthesis of the scientific literature on the characteristics of social communication in children with ASD and on the utiligation of digital technologies (DT) in special education; comparison of scholarly approaches to the use of DT in developing communication skills; and systematization and generalization of findings from previous studies on the effectiveness of DT in working with children with ASD. In addition, empirical data were obtained through surveys conducted among diverse respondent groups, including parents of children with SEN and educators enrolled in the first Ukrainian-language Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) courses. The study was conducted in two stages, during the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 academic years, using questionnaires comprising both closed- and open-ended questions. The first stage focused on the utilization of digital technologies and gamification in education, while the second stage explored the emerging opportunities offered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Main idea. The present study sought to identify the principal ways of integrating digital technologies into social communication training programs for children with ASD and to offer recommendations for parents and professionals working in this field. To this end, we characterized contemporary digital technologies and tools used to develop social communication in children with ASD, identified the main directions for integrating these technologies into intervention and educational programs aimed at developing communication skills, and formulated practical recommendations on their use to foster social communication and promote the generalization of acquired skills to everyday life. The central argument emerging from our findings is that digital tools, including mind maps, gamified applications, AI-based technologies, are most effective not as stand-alone resources but as components of a coherent, behavior-analytically informed system of support. Such tools can serve as a shared framework that facilitates communication and collaboration between educators and parents, ensures consistency of intervention across home and educational settings, thereby creates the conditions necessary for children with ASD to transfer newly acquired communication skills into their daily lives.

Results and Prospects for Further Research. Individualization of intervention is an essential condition for the effectiveness of social communication training programs. Children with ASD may differ considerably in their communicative abilities, as well as in the cognitive processes underlying them, including attention, auditory-verbal and visual memory, and executive functions. Training programs should therefore be preceded by psycho-educational assessment that identifies areas of relatively preserved functions that can serve as a foundation for intervention. Effective programs typically combine several components: development of joint attention and social attention, which underpin the child’s ability to engage in communicative exchanges; support for working memory and other executive functions (planning, cognitive flexibility, self-monitoring, and inhibition of impulsive responses), which enable the child to follow conversations, remember social rules, and adapt behavior to the situation; teaching of functional communication skills, including requesting, commenting, initiating and maintaining interaction, and turn-taking; use of visual supports and mnemonic strategies (social stories, visual schedules, and graphic organizers) to help the child retain and apply social information; stimulation of language development, since verbalization and inner speech facilitate both communication and the self-regulation of behavior; maintenance of motivation through game-based activities, experiences of success, and positive reinforcement. Equally important are regularity and the gradual increase in task complexity. Brief daily sessions generally yield better outcomes than infrequent but lengthy ones. It is also necessary to promote the generalization of acquired communication skills to natural settings, such as learning activities, daily routines, and interaction with peers and family members. Involving parents and educators in the training process helps maintain the results and enhances the overall effectiveness of the program.

We selected digital tools that enable parents to create exercises for developing social communication skills that are tailored to their children’s individual characteristics easily and quickly. In addition, the websites hosting these tools offer ready-made resources free of charge.

Digital tools open up distinctive opportunities for developing social communication in children with ASD. They combine visual support, a game-based format, immediate feedback, and positive reinforcement, which increases children’s engagement and facilitates repeated practice of communication skills. By supporting attention, working memory, and other executive functions, these tools also strengthen the cognitive foundations on which successful social interaction depends. This combination of visual supports, verbalization, repetition, and game-based motivation is consistent with the principles of evidence-based intervention and is particularly appropriate for primary school children and for children with special educational needs.