LapCI ry – The National Association of Cochlear Implanted Children 

The word LapCI pronounced as ‘lapsi’ means ‘a child’ in Finnish. The capital letters ‘C’ and ‘I’ comes naturally from Cochlear Implant – that is ‘sisäkorvaistute’ in Finnish (shortened as SI or CI). The little ‘ry’ in the end stands for registered association.

LapCI ry was founded in 1999 by a group of parents. The aim is to support CI-children and their families throughout Finland. The premise is that all the action begins from the parents and the children themselves.

Statistics

According to the statistics which hospitals’ speech and language therapists have collected, in the end of year 2015 there were 363 children in Finland who had one or two implants. At the same time there were 841 adults using one or two CIs. Nowadays children usually get bilateral implants if their hearing condition requires implant to both ears. LapCI ry has about 160 member families, that is circa 40 % of CI-children’s families in Finland.

LapCI ry arranges about 15 different peer support events each year. There are for example three whole-family-weekends, three summer-camps, club activities in two cities (Tampere & Helsinki), one weekend especially for families with small CI-children and occasional local meetings with families. Some events are organised together with sister associations like KLVL ry. Most LapCI-events are free of charge. There is usually a participation fee for events that last overnight. Families are always welcome to ask for a fee exemption for example for social/economical reasons.

More info about LapCI in english here.

Kuuloliitto ry & CiTo

Kuuloliitto ry – The Finnish Federation of Hard of Hearing (FFHOH) represents the rights and interests of HOH people and provides services for HOH and deafened people and their families.

The Federation has as its members 84 local and two national associations: The Finnish Tinnitus Association and The Finnish Acoustic Neurinoma Association and has a total membership of 16 200 people.

FFHOH is a member of IFHOH (International Federation of Hard of Hearing People), EFHOH (European Federation of Hard of Hearing People), IFHOHYP (International Federation of Hard of Hearing Young People) and NAS (Nordiska Audiologiska Sällskapet).

CiTO is the working committee responsible of peer support for adult CI-users, those who are considering CI and also to all their close ones.  CiTO’s key actions are: organising peer support events and weekends, interest representation and sharing information about CI. The working committee has also an international team.

EURO-CIU

The European Association of Cochlear Implant Users (EURO-CIU) was founded 1995 in Luxembourg. It has member associations from 21 countries.

• More info here www.eurociu.org.
• Newsletter here.