Qatar Foundation launches 10-year plan to support autistic children

Published: 28 April 2025

Autism is one of the nation’s foremost health challenges; children with autism and their families to witness increase in quality of life

 NT Bureau

Doha

Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community De­velopment (QF) on Sunday launched its Autism Strategy for 2025-2035. This strategy is part of its efforts to develop support mechanisms across its system, facilities, ser­vices, policies, and knowledge, in line with Qatar’s National Autism Agenda.

The strategy has been devel­oped in alignment with Qatar’s national autism agenda and re­flects how autism is one of the nation’s foremost health chal­lenges, and Qatar Foundation’s (QF) role as a key stakeholder in national development and a longstanding champion of dis­ability rights, accessibility, and inclusion.

Through the implementation of the strategy, and by 2035, QF aims to achieve a 25 percent re­duction in the average age at which autism is diagnosed; a 50 percent increase in the number of young people with autism in higher education, vocational training, or employment; hav­ing 50 percent of families with autism reporting that their quality of life has improved; and a 50 percent increase in QF-developed technology and in­novative products and services that support improved outcomes for people with autism.

Among the cornerstones of the strategy are expanding Re­nad Academy – a school under QF’s Pre-University Educa­tion – to the point where it ulti­mately caters for students aged from 3-21 years; and implement­ing measures for early autism identification and intervention within QF schools.

QF will establish a communi­ty hub offering digital solutions to parents of children with au­tism.

“Qatar Foundation has always aimed to build an inclusive so­ciety, and this strategy is one of the key steps that we are taking in that direction,” said Dr. Dena Al Thani, Associate Professor and Head of the In­formation and Computing Tech­nology Division at QF’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Col­lege of Science and Engineer­ing, who chairs QF’s Autism Task Force.