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Baby Navigator

Join Baby Navigator when you’re pregnant, as soon as your baby is born, or any time until your baby is 18 months old. Be part of our research to help families.

When you join Baby Navigator, you are creating your account to My Baby Navigator that will be customized for your baby’s age, with links to resources that grow as your baby grows. The earlier you join, the more resources you can be using as your baby is growing.

Register Now

For parents and legal guardians only.

To learn more, scroll down to read details or click to download our Why Join Baby Navigator document.

Here’s what you get in your account to My Baby Navigator, as your baby grows:

Baby Navigator

Social Communication Growth Charts — find out what it takes for your baby to learn to talk, how to support your baby’s learning in everyday activities that you’re already doing, and how to track your baby’s development from birth to their 2nd birthday.

  • Learn about your baby’s social communication milestones and parenting strategies that support early development in fun short video tutorials that you select from a menu by age or by question.
  • Explore lots of video clips showing how babies are learning new social communication milestones. With each milestone clip, watch a companion clip that tells you about the supports the parent is using. Explore the milestone and support clips to find out what your baby is learning, what’s coming next, and how to support your baby’s learning from month to month.
  • Chart your baby’s social communication milestones every 2 months starting at 3 months. Track your baby’s growth in 5 domains of development to get ready really early for preschool. Celebrate these early critical milestones as you watch your baby grow.
Learn more about our Social Communication Growth Charts

Social Communication CheckUp — starting at 9 months you will be invited to fill out the Social Communication CheckUp, or SoCo CheckUp for short, every 3 months, until your baby’s 2nd birthday at 24 months.

  • The SoCo CheckUp asks parents questions about gestures and sounds your child uses and how your child plays to screen for language delay, social communication delay, and autism.
  • The SoCo CheckUp takes only 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and results are automatically scored online—so you have access from anywhere anytime. And it won’t cost you anything.
Learn more about our Social Communication CheckUp

16 by 16™ Lookbook Series — Starting at 8 months you will be invited to flip through our 16 Early Skills Lookbooks to see photos of early gestures and actions with objects that children should learn by 16 months to launch language, literacy, and much more. Starting at 13 months you will be invited to flip through our 16 Early Signs Lookbooks to see photos of the early signs of language delay and autism.

Monthly Check-Ins — starting at 2 months, we will help you celebrate your baby’s monthly birthdays by inviting you to tell us about the new things your baby is learning and concerns you may have about your baby and being a parent. Soon we will be adding a virtual Baby Book feature that you can fill with information from your Monthly Check-Ins and add photos.

Child and Family Information — you will be invited to fill out this form when you join and update it every 2 months. This will let us know more about you, your child, and your family to guide you better to resources, supports, and services, and to help us know about families in our research.

Printables and Web Resources — you can look download, print, and share our printable documents about social communication development and browse lots of great web resources that we have selected for you on babies, development, and parenting.

A few more things to know as you decide whether to Register

Baby Navigator

Baby Navigator is grant funded, so everything is FREE. All of our resources are virtual so you can access them from anywhere anytime.

What if something doesn’t seem quite right? In My Baby Navigator, you will have resources customized to your baby’s results on the SoCo CheckUp. These are to help you learn how early signs of language delay and autism can impact your child’s development, what you can do about it, and how you can build your care team. We also have research opportunities that we may invite you to. You can decide later whether or not you want to learn more about or participate in any research opportunity.

You are in the driver’s seat. Once you join Baby Navigator, we will send you weekly reminders and update the resources in your account on your baby’s monthly birthday. You can decide what you want to do and use and fill out as your baby grows. You can also opt out anytime you want, but we hope you will enjoy what we have to offer you and your family.

Register Now

We’re here to help. Reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions or suggestions to make our resources better.