A free community initiative
Practical, expert-led training for parents of young children.
When you have questions about your child's development, the wait for answers can be long. Our free live webinars offer real strategies you can use at home, starting now. No cost, no referral, no diagnosis needed.
Why we exist
The months of waiting should not be months of waiting alone.
Access to behavioral guidance depends too much on zip code, insurance, and waitlist position. Families notice something, ask questions, and then wait, sometimes a year or more. Project Early Learning was built for that window: free, live training open to any family anywhere, in communities with no local providers and in communities with long waitlists alike. We started in Florida. We are building for everywhere.
You notice something
Questions come up about how your child plays, talks, or connects.
Answers take time
Referrals, waitlists, and evaluations can stretch months to years.
Learning starts now
Free training gives you strategies and momentum during the wait.
Arriving prepared
You reach evaluations and services informed, practiced, and confident.
Where families find us
Shared by the people families already trust.
Early intervention programs, clinics, and community organizations across Florida share our trainings with the families they serve.
Sessions are live online. Any family, anywhere, is welcome.
The next session is free. So is every one after it.
Register once and you will always hear first when new topics open.
Upcoming trainings
Current sessions
Every training is free and live on Zoom. Register once and we will let you know as new topics open.
Toddler Behavior: What That Behavior Means & How to Build Skills
Learn the why behind your child's behavior, plus simple techniques you can use the same day. We walk through the same tools we use with families every day, in plain language you can put to work at home.
What we'll cover
Toddler Communication: What They're Telling You & How to Help Them Say It
Learn what your toddler is telling you, in any form, plus simple ways to help them say more. We share the same tools we use with families every day, in plain language you can put to work at home.
What we'll cover
How the series is built
PEL is a program, not a one-off webinar. The core is an eight-session group curriculum delivered bi-weekly in family cohorts, supplemented by clinical theme modules on specific concerns and a monthly practical life skills series. Every session stands on its own, so families can join anywhere in the cycle.
Is it really free?
Yes. Always. Every session, for every family.
Do I need a diagnosis or referral?
No. If you have questions about your child's development, you belong here.
Who teaches it?
A Board Certified Behavior Analyst with 20+ years of clinical practice. About us.
What is the research study?
Separate from PEL, our founder leads a UCF study for Florida families waiting on an autism evaluation. Learn more or check eligibility.
What if I miss a session?
Register anyway. You will hear first when new dates and topics open.
Our mission
Every family deserves somewhere to start.
Project Early Learning exists to put behavioral resources in families' hands during times of concern and uncertainty, and to promote strong developmental strategies for every family, everywhere. We believe the months when a family first has questions should be the months they get the most support, not the least. And we believe that support should never depend on zip code, income, insurance status, language, or background.
The gap we fill
The families who wait longest for developmental support are often the same families every system already underserves: families without insurance, families in rural and low-income communities, and families navigating services in a language other than English. Entire counties, in Florida and across the country, have no behavioral providers at all. Where services exist, cost and waitlists put them out of reach for exactly the families who need them soonest. PEL delivers free, live, expert-led training into that gap, open to every family and every organization, with no eligibility screen of any kind.
The road ahead
Where we started. Where this goes.
A decade of teaching families
Long before PEL had a name, its founder spent ten years inside clinical practice teaching parents the strategies behind their children's therapy, family by family, in Brevard County.
Volunteer trainings prove the model
Free parent trainings delivered in partnership with the Down Syndrome Foundation of Florida show that what worked family by family works for a room: families show up when support is free and practical.
Project Early Learning goes live
PEL launches as a live webinar series. In the pilot, 48 families registered and 32 attended. Partner organizations across Florida begin sharing PEL with the families they serve.
Specialized session tracks
Dedicated tracks by concern and age: early communication, behavior, feeding, sleep, and school readiness.
On-demand library
An asynchronous library, so support is there at 2 AM when the worry is, not just when a webinar is scheduled.
Multilingual sessions and materials
Starting with Spanish, so language is never the barrier.
A nationwide free resource
For every family in the wait, with a partner network to match.
Who we are
Built by a clinician who has sat on both sides of the table.
Joshua Levins, BCBA, is the owner of Creative Learning Inc., an ABA clinic serving Brevard County families since 2004, and a doctoral student in Exceptional Student Education at the University of Central Florida. He brings more than 20 years of clinical practice with children ages 2 to 22, and co-founded the Levins Hernandez Developmental Center to expand what families in Central Florida can reach.
Advancing the field
Beyond individual families, PEL is committed to strengthening how the field understands early childhood development. Through a separate, university-based research effort, families who choose to can contribute to science that aims to shorten the road to answers for the next family. Learn more on our Research page.
For partners
A free resource for the families you serve.
If your organization works with families of young children, in early intervention, pediatric care, childcare, or community programs, PEL gives you something concrete to offer during the wait for evaluations and services. No cost to your organization, no cost to families, no paperwork.
Waitlist & intake packets
Include our flyer with the materials families already receive.
Newsletters & email
Share upcoming sessions in your family communications.
Evaluations & events
Hand flyers to families at the moments questions are freshest.
Resource directories
List PEL wherever your community looks for help.
Materials, ready when you are
Download the current flyers, or create a registration link and QR code specific to your organization.
Toddler Behavior series
Toddler Communication series
Create your organization's flyer
Type your organization's name, then pick a flyer. You get a print-ready PDF with a QR code unique to your organization, and families who register through it are counted to you, so you can see the reach of your sharing.
Printed materials, or a session for your staff or physicians? [email protected]
Research
Project Early Warning
Project Early Warning is a University of Central Florida feasibility study, conducted separately from PEL's free trainings, examining whether a brief telehealth interview can capture what parents observe about their child's development and organize those observations into information clinicians can use.
See if your family is eligible about 5 minutes
The problem it addresses
In Florida, children with suspected autism wait an average of 12 to 18 months for a diagnostic evaluation, and during that window families typically have no access to behavior-analytic services. The screening tools used today rely on yes-or-no checklists that were never designed to hold what caregivers actually observe day to day, so the richest behavioral information a family brings to their first appointment is largely lost. This study asks whether that information can be captured earlier and put to clinical use.
The approach
Caregivers complete one open-ended Zoom interview describing their child in their own words. A natural language processing pipeline, developed for this study and applying behavior-analytic measurement principles, organizes those descriptions into structured behavioral categories that can support clinical handoff and tailored parent resources while families remain on the waitlist.
Behavior analysis
A century of operational definition: turning everyday behavior into something precise enough to measure.
Language technology
Modern language processing at the scale of thousands of narratives, guided by that measurement framework.
Caregiver observations, systematically organized
Families' own words become structured, reviewable behavioral information, retained so that future analyses can return to the same narratives with better tools and new questions.
Study information
Feasibility of an AI-Augmented Telehealth Protocol for Early Autism Detection
University of Central Florida · IRB #8982
Principal Investigator: Joshua Levins, M.S., BCBA · Faculty Advisor: Matthew Marino, Ph.D.
- One 25 to 30 minute Zoom interview, scheduled at your convenience
- Open-ended questions about your child's communication, behavior, and daily routines
- No cost, no in-person visits, no change to your place on any waitlist
- Families receive a curated list of community resources after their interview
Accepted for presentation at the 46th Annual Conference of the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis (Orlando, 2026): “Reducing the Waitlist: A Telehealth Feasibility Study Using Caregiver Narratives to Triage Children Awaiting ASD Evaluation,” Levins, Marino, & Perez.
See if your family is eligible
The eligibility survey takes about 5 minutes and is hosted securely by the University of Central Florida.
How this works
How PEL stays free.
Every PEL session is free to every family, with no plans for that ever to change. The work is carried by clinicians who donate their time and by partner organizations who share it with the families they serve. Nothing about attending, registering, or partnering costs anyone anything.
A different architecture
Most early intervention offerings share the same structure: a clinician-delivered model, an eligibility gate, a geographic catchment, and a cost structure that caps how many families it can ever reach. They are valuable, and PEL is not competing with them. PEL is the layer underneath them: no eligibility screen, no catchment, and near-zero marginal cost per additional family. A webinar that serves 30 families serves 300 without a new hire, and an on-demand library serves the 2 AM family no clinic model ever will.
And through a separate university research arm (see Research), this work is also building something the field's current tools do not capture: a deeper picture of how development looks from inside the family, in caregivers' own words, rather than checkbox screeners alone.
Share it
The most valuable thing anyone can do: put PEL in front of a family who needs it. Every flyer handed over and every session shared extends the reach.
Partner with us
Organizations serving young families can offer PEL at no cost, through packets, newsletters, and events. See the Partners page to start.
Grow with us
Specialized tracks, an on-demand library, and multilingual materials are ahead. Organizations interested in helping that future arrive sooner are always welcome to say hello.
Privacy
How we handle your information.
Plain answers, because families and partner organizations deserve to know exactly what happens with what they share.
What we collect
When you register for a training we ask for your name, your email, and which sessions you want. Optional questions ask your county, the primary language spoken at home, and whether your child currently receives services; answering them is your choice and helps us plan sessions and understand who we are reaching. We also ask how you heard about us. When a partner organization creates a flyer or link, we record only the organization name they type, so registrations can be counted to that organization. This website itself does not use tracking cookies or advertising analytics.
How we use it
To send your Zoom link and session reminders, to let you know when new sessions open, to plan topics, and to understand which communities and partner organizations PEL is reaching. That is the whole list.
What we never do
We never sell, rent, or share your information with advertisers or any third party. Registering for a training creates no obligation of any kind.
Research is separate
The University of Central Florida research study described on our Research page runs through UCF's own secure systems, under university IRB oversight, with its own consent process. Nothing you enter when registering for a training enrolls you in research or is used for research recruitment.
Your choices
Email [email protected] at any time to update your information, unsubscribe from session updates, or have your registration information deleted.