Alabama Department of Mental Health

This study investigates the potential of artificial intelligence, particularly Natural Language Processing and large-scale language models, to improve resource management and service access for individuals with autism in Alabama. The research aims to explore and evaluate the potential of AI-driven tools to address challenges in navigating complex datasets and supporting social work practices. We designed and tested AI systems, including general language models, domain-specific chatbots powered by advanced language models, and a Retrieval-Augmented Generation framework. A standardized set of queries was used to simulate real-world scenarios encountered by social workers engaged in autism service coordination. System performance was evaluated based on precision, recall, and response accuracy. Results demonstrated that the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework achieved superior performance compared to traditional NLP methods and general-purpose language models, attaining approximately 90–96% precision and recall across evaluated query types. RAG outperformed the domain-specific GPT-4 chatbot by approximately 5–12 percentage points in F1 score, with the largest gains observed for queries requiring geographic specificity, multiple constraints, or complex contextual understanding. The integration of domain-specific retrieval significantly enhanced the accuracy, contextual relevance, and usability of generated responses. The findings highlight the transformative potential of AI-driven tools in improving social work efficiency and enhancing healthcare equity. By streamlining care coordination and delivering accurate, contextually relevant information, these systems offer scalable solutions to improve access to autism-related services. Future research should focus on addressing data quality, minimizing biases, and ensuring ethical deployment to build trust and support widespread adoption of these tools.

Role-playing is a valid technique used in English language learning contexts that has demonstrated a positive impact in improving learners' speaking skills.It gives the students a good opportunity to explore and practice different situations of real life and enables them to speak in a more accurate, amusing, and confident way as well as let them focus mainly on communication rather than grammar.This paper is basically a presentation of three scenarios that have been used by the authors during Scientific English courses in secondary and tertiary education contexts at a local university.These courses were generally short in duration (a total of 12-16 hours) and were focused mainly on the improvement of productive skills, writing and speaking.The role play activities performed by students with the teacher's support and supervision were beneficial to the enhancement of speaking abilities as well as stimulate students' creativity and peer-to-peer interaction.