REIMAGINING LEARNING SOCIAL EMOTIONAL SKILLS

Social Cue is an AI social coach designed to transform social uncertainty into confidence-building platform that helps K–12 learners—especially neurodiverse students—build real-world social and emotional skills. Using AI-driven emotional recognition, adaptive feedback, and voice-based conversation practice, it guides users through everyday interactions like making friends, managing conflict, and expressing emotions. The long-term vision includes optional wearable insights to deepen emotional awareness and real-time support.

Social Cue transforms social learning into an interactive, inclusive, and empowering experience that bridges the gap between classroom instruction and authentic human connection.

Real-time coaching for real-world connection.

THE PROBLEM

Countless neurodiverse K–12 students with autism, ADHD, and social anxiety face an invisible barrier: they're told to "just practice" their social skills, but nobody tells them what to practice or with whom. What they rehearse in weekly social skills groups rarely translates to the unpredictable reality of hallways, lunch tables, or group projects.

The research is clear: social-emotional learning works. A meta-analysis of over 270,000 students found an 11-point gain in academic performance after SEL programming (Durlak et al., 2011), with benefits lasting for years (Mahoney, Durlak, and Weissberg, 2018).

Yet when researchers reviewed 166 SEL programs, only 19 even mentioned students with disabilities, and only 5 tested whether the programs actually worked for them (Daley and McCarthy, 2021). The students who need support most are systematically excluded from the solutions designed to help.

This gap between evidence and equity, between what works and who benefits, led me to my central question:

How can we provide effective, accessible SEL support to

the neurodiverse students who need it most?

DESIGN PROCESS

WE DIDN'T START WITH A SOLUTION. WE STARTED WITH LISTENING.

I began with no assumptions and no predetermined solutions. From April through June 2025, I conducted semi-structured interviews with fifteen stakeholders and spent over 40 hours observing students in naturalistic settings at iLEAD Lancaster, a public charter school in Southern California.

I tracked interactions in classrooms, during lunch transitions, and in hallway moments where social anxiety quietly peaks. I documented patterns, contradictions, and moments that didn't fit into neat categories.

Working alongside Katelyn Kaufman, CCC-SLP at Ohana Student Services, one insight fundamentally reframed everything: students weren't struggling because they lacked interest. They were struggling because the support they needed rarely existed in the moments that mattered.

This became my north star.

Teachers described spending 2-3 hours weekly managing emotional escalations with no real-time tools. One special education teacher, Mrs. Park, documented eleven separate incidents in a single week where students shut down during unstructured social time. Students spoke about wanting connection but fearing correction. During observations, I witnessed six instances where students physically isolated themselves rather than risk saying the "wrong thing."

Parents shared quiet frustrations about gaps no program could fill:

This ethnography didn't just inform my process. It shaped the entire direction of the solution.

"Many of my students have disabilities such as autism or speech-language differences, and social skills are one of their biggest needs. They rely on support with boundaries, conversation skills, and emotional regulation every single day. Kids don't need to be fixed. They just need tools to navigate a world that doesn't make sense to them."

"It's very difficult to watch our son Zach misread a peer's disinterest as enthusiasm, leading to painful rejection." (Thomas & Rachel Fielder)

15 participants across 3 stakeholder groups
7 students ages 7-16 (5 with IEPs for autism, ADHD, or anxiety)
3 teachers, 1 speech-language pathologist, 1 occupational therapist, 1 school counselor
2 families of neurodiverse learners
Classroom observations spanning arrival routines, collaborative learning, lunch transitions, and dismissals
Individual therapy sessions and small-group interventions

RESEARCH PARAMETERS

THE HIDDEN PATTERN:

Students Weren't Resisting Support, They Were Resisting Exposure

WHAT STUDENTS TOLD ME proved my first hypothesis was completely wrong. I entered research believing students needed better instruction of SEL. Within three interviews, that assumption collapsed. Students kept expressing what seemed like contradictory needs: "I need help!" "Getting help is embarrassing." Then one student reframed everything:

The issue wasn't intervention. It was an audience. Students wanted guidance that felt invisible to peers but powerful to them. Students weren't asking for therapy or traditional social skills classes. They were asking for private, judgment-free practice space with real-time feedback.

"I don't mind help. I just don't want anyone else to see me getting help."

"I want to know how to make friends. Like, actually make them. Not just be in the same room."

(11-year-old with ASD)

"I wish someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong without everyone seeing. It's embarrassing when the teacher has to explain things to me in front of everyone."

(14-year-old with social anxiety)

"I don’t like feeling like I'm different!"

(13-year-old with ASD)

REFRAMING THE DESIGN CHALLENGE

How might we provide better SEL support to neurodiverse students?

How might we offer in-the-moment SEL guidance as students navigate real social situations?

This realization fundamentally shifted my approach. The question evolved from:

HOW MIGHT WE TRANSFORM SOCIAL UNCERTAINTY INTO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR CONFIDENCE-BUILDING?

EXIST IN THE MOMENT, NOT AFTER THE FACT

Social challenges happen in real time. Feedback delivered hours or days later doesn't create the learning that changes behavior.

"I can teach a student how to join a conversation in our session. But when the actual moment happens at lunch, I'm not there. And by the time they come back to see me, they've already internalized whatever happened as another failure."

FEEL PRIVATE, NOT PUBLIC

Traditional interventions inadvertently highlight differences. Students become hyper-aware of being watched, corrected, or singled out. True learning requires psychological safety, and psychological safety requires privacy.

"I wish someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong without everyone seeing. It's embarrassing when the teacher has to explain things to me in front of everyone."

RESPECT DIGNITY WHILE BUILDING CONFIDENCE

How support is delivered matters as much as what that support contains. Students respond to coaching, not correction. They need to feel capable while they're learning, not reminded constantly of what they're getting wrong.

"I want to practice where it's okay to mess up. Where nobody's going to laugh or think I'm weird."

MEET STUDENTS WHERE THEY ARE AT

What overwhelms one student might not faze another. Support has to adapt to individual needs, developmental stages, and real-time emotional states.

These insights didn't just inform my process. They became the foundation for Social Cue.

"Kids don't need to be fixed. They just need tools to navigate a world that doesn't make sense to them." - Katelyn Kaufman - CCC-SLP

FROM INSIGHTS TO IDEAS:
THE IDEATION PROCRESS

Once I understood the real challenges, I moved into ideation without immediate filtering. I explored multiple directions:

The concept that aligned best with student needs was a hybrid approach: AI-powered practice accessible through an app, with future integration of discrete wearable devices for real-world coaching.

This wasn't the flashiest idea. It was the idea most grounded in what the research revealed people actually needed.

Simple conversation guide tools students could reference during interactions
Peer buddy systems pairing students with trained mentors
VR-based practice environments for immersive social rehearsal
Wearable technology providing physiological feedback
AI-powered coaching accessible through familiar devices for private practice

“The ideation process taught me something important about design: creativity isn't about generating as many ideas as possible. It's about deeply understanding the problem and then letting that understanding guide you toward solutions that actually make sense for the people you're serving.”

- Kelsey Evenson (SocialCue Founder)

BUILDING & TESTING: FROM CONCEPT TO FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE

I started with deliberately simple prototypes. No polished interfaces, just the basic structure of interaction I needed to test. Using a "Wizard of Oz" approach, I manually triggered AI responses to test emotional tone, pacing, and conversational structure without getting bogged down in technical implementation.

After refining the basic structure, I built a functional prototype integrating:

Real conversation practice through voice interaction
Dynamic AI responses that adapt to student input and performance
Grade-adaptive content that adjusts language complexity and scenario difficulty
Progress tracking with specific, encouraging feedback

TESTING WITH REAL STUDENTS

EACH 20-MINUTE TESTING SESSION REVEALED SPECIFIC REFINEMENTS:

ITERATION 1 TO 2: EMOTIONAL TONE

Early versions felt too clinical. I rewrote the AI's voice to sound warmer, more like a supportive older sibling than a therapist.

ITERATION 3 TO 4: FEEDBACK SPECIFICITY

Generic praise wasn't landing. I designed the system to identify and name specific behaviors: maintaining eye contact, using someone's name, asking follow-up questions.

ITERATION 2 TO 3: SCENARIO VARIETY

Students got bored with repetitive situations. I expanded scenarios from simple greetings to complex social navigation:

"how to join a conversation that's already happening" or "how to respond when someone seems upset with you."

ITERATION 4 TO CURRENT: AVATAR INTERGRATION

Students needed visual representation. I developed an avatar that models expressions, tone, gestures, and body language contextually while simultaneously detecting the learner's emotional cues to adapt conversations in real-time.

WHAT HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN REVEALED: FIVE CORE PRINCIPLES

These principles didn't come from theory. They emerged from listening to students, observing real moments of struggle, and testing what made support feel empowering rather than uncomfortable.

PRINCIPLE 1: SUPPORT SHOULD FEEL INVISIBLE, NO EXPOSING

Students wanted guidance without being singled out. Social Cue provides private, judgment-free practice that doesn't call attention to the learner.

PRINCIPLE 2: REAL-TIME SUPPORT MATTERS MORE THAN PERFECT SUPPORT

Social challenges happen in hallways, lunchrooms, and transitions, not in scheduled sessions. By the time feedback arrives later, the moment has passed and the student has already internalized the experience as failure.

PRINCIPLE 3: SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL SKILLS ARE PHYSICAL AS MUCH AS EMOTIONAL

I observed students' bodies signaling stress before they spoke: clenched fists, shallow breathing, tense shoulders. Social Cue's AI analyzes tone, pace, and vocal expression to detect anxiety or confidence, building students' awareness of the mind-body connection.

PRINCIPLE 4: TEACHERS NEED PATTERNS, NOT MORE TASKS

Teachers don't need another system to monitor. They need to see social-emotional patterns without extra work. Future teacher dashboards will focus on high-level trends: who is struggling, when, and why.

PRINCIPLE 5: FEEDBACK SHOULD PROTECT DIGNITY

Students responded best to warm, encouraging language that assumed they were capable. Social Cue normalizes struggle, celebrates effort, and frames mistakes as information rather than failure. The goal is always to leave the learner feeling more confident than when they started.

These principles now guide every iteration of Social Cue, from current features to future expansions including wearable integration, real-world coaching through earbuds, and multiplayer practice environments. The research revealed not just what to build, but why it matters and how to build it with dignity at the center.

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