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Autism Navigator Courses for Professionals and Families

Autism Navigator online courses offer interactive slides with an unparalleled library of video clips. Our course collection covers topics from early detection of toddlers with autism at 18–24 months to evidence-based intervention strategies and supports for social communication, active engagement, and addressing challenging behavior. It illustrates how to coach families in everyday activities at home and to increase the capacity of educators in PreK to 2nd grade classrooms.

Free for Everyone

Autism Navigator® About Autism in Toddlers

  • Our first online course – FREE to the public
  • For families, professionals*, or anyone interested in learning about autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
  • Video clips of over a dozen toddlers with ASD at 18-24 months of age
  • Note: Professionals who want a completion certificate will need to purchase the Professional Development version of this course. Scroll down to the For Professionals section of this page for more information.

Autism Navigator® ASD Video Glossary

ASD Video Glossary

The ASD Video Glossary is a web-based tool built to help families and professionals learn more about the early signs of autism. This tool was developed by the Florida State University Autism Institute in collaboration with First Signs and Autism Speaks and has been available to the public free of charge since 2007. The Glossary contains more than 100 video clips illustrating the diagnostic features of ASD. Side-by-side video clips show behaviors that are typical in contrast with those that are red flags for autism. The Glossary also contains over 100 video clips to illustrate common treatments available for children with autism. The ASD Video Glossary has been brought into the Autism Navigator collection and updated to be in line with the new DSM-5 diagnostic framework.

For Professionals

Autism Navigator® for Primary Care

Autism Navigator® for Primary Care

This interactive web-based professional development course is designed for providers who work with the general pediatric population to increase the capacity for universal screening to improve early detection of ASD, make referrals for children with or at risk for ASD, and help families access resources, support, and early intervention sooner. The course is for physicians and other healthcare providers in primary care, service coordinators and other team members in early intervention systems making decisions about eligibility, as well as child development specialists in early learning environments who screen and make referrals. This 8-hour course integrates current research with video illustrations of over two dozen toddlers with ASD and families participating in early screening, diagnosis, and intervention. CMEs or other continuing education units are available. Those who complete the course have access to the tiered system of family supports with an online screening tool, Social Communication Growth Charts, and other resources for families they serve. Our screening tool is part of the Baby Navigator Portal, which helps facilitate information sharing between families and providers and to engage families in the screening and referral process.

With an annual subscription, you also get 20 seats to invite families to the How-To Guide for Families.

Autism Navigator® JumpStart to Coaching in Everyday Activities

JumpStart to Coaching

Autism Navigator JumpStart to Coaching Families in Everyday Activities is a 20-hour self-paced course geared for interprofessional training for a variety of disciplines to support families of young children with or at risk for autism. The self-guided course includes the Guide Books and Libraries in the How-To Guide for Families plus Field Guides on 1) Having Difficult Conversations About the Early Signs of Autism and 2) Coaching Families in the Natural Environment. It is designed to build the capacity of early intervention providers, community health workers, family navigators, early childhood teachers, and home visitors to coach families as they are learning in the How-To Guide for Families, so families can hit the ground running to support their child learning in everyday activities.

With an annual subscription, you also get 10 seats to invite families to the How-To Guide for Families.

Autism Navigator® for Early Intervention Providers

Autism Navigator® for Early Intervention Providers

This interactive web-based professional development course is designed to increase the capacity of early intervention providers to better serve infants and toddlers with or at risk for ASD and their families. The 30-hour self-paced course at the Knowledge and Skills level integrates current research with extensive video illustrations covering 5 topics: 1) Improving Early Detection, 2) Collaborating with Families, 3) Developmental Perspectives, 4) Evidence-based Intervention Strategies, and 5) Addressing Challenging Behaviors. A certificate of completion and continuing education units are available upon completion of each unit. The Mastery level course supports ongoing learning and application with extensive libraries of video clips and self-guided lessons for providers to gain more experience practicing and implementing the concepts and to access more video examples to better serve families. Using strategies based on implementation science to support statewide or regional system change, the Mastery level is the initial training of Autism Navigator regional specialists to mentor and support learning of other early intervention providers. Users are invited to attend monthly interactive webinars for each course level with research briefs, focused topics identified by learners, and video review with chat discussion and be part of a larger Autism Navigator learner community.

With an annual subscription at the Knowledge & Skills level, you also get 10 seats to invite families to the How-To Guide for Families. At the Mastery level, you get 20 seats to give to families.

Autism Navigator® About Autism in Toddlers (Professional Development Version)

About Autism in Toddlers includes video clips of over a dozen toddlers with autism. It is a perfect introductory pre-service or in-service for professionals who want to learn about autism in young children. For a small fee and by passing a learner assessment, users can obtain a certificate of completion and earn CEUs for course completion.

Autism Navigator® for Classroom Success in PreK to 2nd Grade

Autism Navigator® for Success in K-2 Classrooms

Autism Navigator for Classroom Success in PreK to 2nd Grade is a self-paced 15 to 20 hour online professional development course with interactive slides and practical video examples. It is designed to increase the capacity of preschool, kindergarten, first and second grade teachers, special educators, therapists, special area teachers, and school staff to support children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the classroom and school environment. This course presents an overview of how the unique characteristics of autism may impact a child’s school experience and offers an evidence-based framework for supporting active engagement and positive behavior in a variety of settings and teaching contexts. There is no need to purchase special materials or a curriculum. The content will enable teachers to support students with the materials and activities already available in the classroom.

With an annual subscription, you also get 10 seats to invite families to the How-To Guide for Families.

Social Communication Development in Infants and Toddlers

Social Communication Development in Infants and Toddlers

Children learn to talk at an amazing rate but what does it take to learn to talk? Social communication milestones offer a critical window into the wellbeing of infants and toddlers and are the earliest signs of healthy development and school readiness. This online Knowledge and Skills level course is designed as a stand-alone course for continuing education units or a module within a university course for undergraduates or beginning graduate students. It is geared for any discipline that works with young children and families, including child development, communication science and disorders, psychology, social work, early childhood education and special education, nursing, pediatrics, family medicine, or other related fields. This self-paced course has an Explore function with side-by-side video players to illustrate 90 social communication milestones that develop from 7 to 24 months of age organized into two threads for each of 5 domains—language, play, social interaction, emotional regulation, and self-directed learning. The Study Guide function of the course has self-guided Lessons to provide opportunities to study how the social communication milestones shift and change over time from 7 to 24 months, how reaching milestones in these 5 developmental domains culminate in school readiness indicators by 24 months, and how the developmental interaction of reaching these milestones across domains has a cumulative impact that leads to 5 critical paths to learning.

For Families

Autism Navigator® About Autism in Toddlers

  • Our first online course – FREE to the public
  • For families, professionals, or anyone interested in learning about autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
  • Video clips of over a dozen toddlers with ASD at 18-24 months of age

Autism Navigator® How-To Guide for Families

How-To Guide for Families

This interactive web-based course is for families who suspect their young child has autism or a social communication delay. It will put in the hands of families hundreds of video illustrations of evidence-based intervention techniques they can implement in everyday activities to support their child’s learning as soon as they suspect autism. This interactive program will teach families how to embed strategies and supports into their everyday activities, provide developmental growth charts to help families recognize and monitor meaningful outcomes, and offer a video library to illustrate how to promote learning and development for young children with ASD. This How-To Guide for Families will also be instrumental for early intervention providers to use with families to improve outcomes of young children with ASD and their families.

Pricing for Autism Navigator Courses

Autism Navigator courses are developed by the Florida State University Autism Institute and distributed by Autism Navigator LLC.

Funding was provided by the state of Florida, so courses are FREE for Floridians. If you live and/or work in Florida, please complete this REQUEST FORM to enroll. For all other enrollments, please visit our course catalog.

Costs for Individual Enrollment

All prices are for a one-year license that is renewable for a lesser cost.

Pricing for Autism Navigator Courses

Sharpen your observation skills.

Don’t be the one who says, “let’s wait and see,”
when you have the chance to help a family and act early.

Autism Navigator® for Primary Care

Group Rates

Group rates are available for 50 seats or more. This applies to a purchase of one course or a selection of courses. Click below for more information about group pricing and tiers of professional development. Contact us at [email protected].

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