Psycho-Intelligent Dialogue Agents for Enhancing Emotional Self-Regulation in Autistic Teenagers

Professor Celestine Iwendi; Negin Aboutorabi; Adedeji Edward Adesola; Collins Lemeke; Gladys  Chisom  Okoro; Dilbar Uzun Ozsahin

Psycho-Intelligent Dialogue Agents for Enhancing Emotional Self-Regulation in Autistic Teenagers

Professor Celestine Iwendi, Negin Aboutorabi, Adedeji Edward Adesola, Collins Lemeke, Gladys Chisom Okoro Dilbar Uzun Ozsahin

2026 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Computing in Engineering, Communications, Sciences and Biomedical Health Informatics (IC3ECSBHI), pp.658-663

2nd IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Computing in Engineering, Communications, Sciences and Biomedical Health Informatics (IC3ECSBHI-2026) (Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India, 12/02/2026–14/02/2026)

14/04/2026

Index Terms—Affective computing

emotion recogni- tion

dialogue systems

self-regulation

assistive technology

Autism

Autistic adolescents often experience the inability to identify their emotions and self-regulate them, thus creating the impulse for the construction of intelligent assistive technologies. Building on this premise, this work proposes a novel Psycho-Intelligent Dialogue Agent (PIDA) system, which attempts to incorporate advances in affective computing, contextualized reasoning , and psychotherapeutic dialogues, in aiding emotional self-regulation with teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This system integrates a visual emotion recognition model with an adaptive conversational bow. To train the emotion classifier for real time application trained using transfer learning techniques based on the VGG16 architecture of deep convolutional neural networks, it was trained on a specialized dataset comprising of autistic children's facial expressions and achieved an accuracy of 71% at a 5-emotion recognition task. The Effect recognition module serves the context-aware dialogue manager in real time adapting and personalizing the emotional regulation frameworks to be employed. PIDA's dialogues are based on the principles of clinical psychotherapy, with psychotherapeutic techniques and intervention strategies which are individually tuned to the emotional state and contextual parameters of the situation. The system was designed and built salted with caregiver integration features to enable guardians to monitor progress and active participant in the personalization of the intervention. Primary experimental results reflect the feasibility of this dimension in emotional awareness and emotional regulation and coping strategies. To support we provide uninterrupted emotional assistance to autistic young people and offer flexible support resources during and in between emotional therapy appointments.

(3)

pdf

Psycho-Intelligent Dialogue Agents for Enhancing Emotional Self-Regulation in Autistic Teenagers501.52 kB

Accepted Open Access — You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

url

Link to publisher version

Published (Version of record) Publisher sites may require subscription or purchase to access content — This item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation (such as any Fair Dealing allowances allowed by copyright law). For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

url

Conference website

Event Website

: Psycho-Intelligent Dialogue Agents for Enhancing Emotional Self-Regulation in Autistic Teenagers
: Professor Celestine Iwendi - University of Greater Manchester, Computing
Negin Aboutorabi - University of Greater Manchester
Adedeji Edward Adesola - University of Greater Manchester
Collins Lemeke - University of Greater Manchester
Gladys Chisom Okoro - University of Greater Manchester
Dilbar Uzun Ozsahin - Near East University
: 2026 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Computing in Engineering, Communications, Sciences and Biomedical Health Informatics (IC3ECSBHI), pp.658-663
: 2nd IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Computing in Engineering, Communications, Sciences and Biomedical Health Informatics (IC3ECSBHI-2026) (Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India, 12/02/2026–14/02/2026)
: IEEE
: 9960451508841; 9798331556921
: For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to any Accepted Manuscript version arising.
: Computing
: English
: Conference proceeding
: 16/12/2025