SocialWise: LLM-Agentic Conversation Therapy for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Enhance Communication Skills

TL;DR

SocialWise is a browser-based LLM-powered tool designed to improve communication skills in individuals with ASD through scenario-based, interactive conversation therapy with instant feedback.

Contribution

It introduces a scalable, low-cost, browser-based application combining LLMs and retrieval-augmented generation for ASD communication therapy.

Findings

Prototype demonstrates effective, real-time feedback on tone and engagement.

Runs on any internet-connected device using Streamlit, LangChain, and ChromaDB.

Provides evidence-based communication coaching for ASD individuals.

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects more than 75 million people worldwide. However, scalable support for practicing everyday conversation is scarce: Low-cost activities such as story reading yield limited improvement. At the same time, effective role-play therapy demands expensive, in-person sessions with specialists. SocialWise bridges this gap through a browser-based application that pairs LLM conversational agents with a therapeutic retrieval augmented generation (RAG) knowledge base. Users select a scenario (e.g., ordering food, joining a group), interact by text or voice, and receive instant, structured feedback on tone, engagement, and alternative phrasing. The SocialWise prototype, implemented with Streamlit, LangChain, and ChromaDB, runs on any computer with internet access, and demonstrates how recent advances in LLM can provide evidence-based, on-demand communication coaching for individuals with ASD.