HASKINS LABORATORIES INC

Their core work

Haskins Laboratories is a private, non-profit research institute in New Haven, Connecticut, historically known for foundational work in speech science, reading, and language perception. Their core research examines how the brain acquires, processes, and produces language — including pathological variations such as developmental dyslexia, specific language impairment, and reading disorders in bilingual populations. In European consortia, they contribute specialist expertise in neuroscientific measurement methods (EEG, ERP, NIRS, eye-tracking, ultrasound tongue imaging) alongside computational models of predictive language processing. More recently, their focus has extended to Bayesian models of how the infant brain learns from its environment, placing them at the intersection of developmental psychology and computational neuroscience.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 involvement (2015–2019), Haskins contributed primarily to applied clinical questions: language impairments in bilingual children, dyslexia, and the measurement tools (EEG, ERP, NIRS, eye-tracking, ultrasound) that distinguish typical from atypical language development. By 2019–2021, the focus shifted toward foundational developmental neuroscience — specifically how the infant brain forms statistical models of the world through Bayesian learning, with attention and brain development as the key constructs. The word "prediction" appears in both periods, pointing to a deepening theoretical commitment to predictive processing as the unifying framework beneath both the clinical and the basic-science work.

Haskins is moving from applied clinical language research toward foundational computational neuroscience of development, with predictive processing as the through-line — making them an increasingly valuable partner for consortia bridging cognitive science, neuroscience, and early childhood research.

How they like to work

Haskins participates exclusively as a third party in EU projects — a structural consequence of their US location, which bars them from receiving EC funding directly rather than reflecting any limit in their scientific role. With 14 unique partners across just 2 projects, they have been embedded in large MSCA training network consortia, where they likely serve as a research host, methodological trainer, or supervisor for EU-funded early-stage researchers. This pattern — specialist US lab in a European ITN or Individual Fellowship — is a well-established collaboration model and suggests Haskins is actively sought out for the expertise they cannot easily be replaced with inside Europe.

With 14 consortium partners across 5 countries from only 2 projects, Haskins is connected to notably broad European networks relative to their small project count, consistent with participation in large MSCA training consortia. Their geographic reach is transatlantic, bridging North American speech science infrastructure with European research networks.

What sets them apart

Haskins Laboratories is one of a small number of US-based private research institutes with sustained H2020 involvement, giving European consortia direct access to a North American institution with decades of accumulated expertise in speech perception, reading, and language neuroscience. Their combination of clinical disorder research with specialized neuroimaging — including ultrasound tongue imaging, a methodology closely associated with Haskins — makes them a rare and specific methodological asset that few European labs replicate. For a consortium studying developmental language disorders or early language acquisition, Haskins offers both scientific depth and access to US clinical and academic networks that strengthen the project's international dimension.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PREDICTABLE
  A large MSCA Innovative Training Network tackling the clinically urgent intersection of multilingualism, dyslexia, and specific language impairment simultaneously — a combination that remains rare and under-researched across European languages.
• BabyBayes
  An ambitious MSCA Individual Fellowship combining Bayesian computational modeling with infant neuroimaging to study the earliest stages of human learning — representing Haskins' pivot toward foundational developmental cognitive science.