Haskins Laboratories is a private, independent, international, 501(c) non-profit corporation. It is a multidisciplinary community of researchers which conducts basic research on spoken and written language. Founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut since 1970, It views speech and language as biological processes. The Laboratories has a long history of technological and theoretical innovation, from creating the rules for speech synthesis and the first working prototype of a reading machine for the blind to developing the landmark concept of phonemic awareness as the critical preparation for learning to read.