Before her teaching career began, Nicole LeCause worked at a center for independent living, helping people in nursing homes transition to self-sufficient lives. The fear and helplessness brought on by the prospect of living alone, LeCause said, were staggering.  

LeCause was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when she was six months old, and wasn't expected to live beyond age 3. The disease progressed until she was about 2 years old, then stopped - something for which LeCause calls herself "lucky." Now 35, she moves with the help of an electric wheelchair, speaks with the help of a microphone and has mobility only in two fingers on her right hand. LeCause lives independently in Dundalk's Key Landing apartments and is a third-year special education teacher at Holabird Middle School.  

Her experience with those nursing home residents motivated LeCause - who received a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in counseling from Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania - to pursue a degree in education.  

"A lot of people were afraid of living alone. They weren't confident in their abilities," she said. "I thought I could make more of a difference working with kids so they wouldn't be there, so they had the skills they really needed to be independent."   In LeCause's classroom, though, independence in special needs students is more a necessity than a goal. Her own limitations, she said, have resulted in more advancement for her students.  

"I know there are times when it would be easier to point to things or physically help them with something but in the end, I still think it's good," she said. "They learn to do more on their own."  

And they rely heavily on technology, she said, for much of what they do. LeCause's laptop computer is connected to a projector that presents information to her students, in place of writing on a chalkboard. Students do all of their classwork on a shared computer; LeCause checks the work there as well. Some of her nonverbal students use communication boards, to which LeCause's computer is connected. A special phone system helps her call home to parents. And everything she needs on a daily basis - student files, books and curricula - is scanned and stored in her laptop as well.  

"We have a lot of technology that makes it easy," she said. "[My students are] really aware of what to do, and they're probably more comfortable on the computer than other kids because they're used to working with things."  

LeCause's own educational experience, prior to college, was less than inspirational, and becoming a teacher was not something she expected.  

"I didn't like school and was always placed in special education classes," LeCause said. "They were just real easy. I don't think people knew how to handle someone with a severe physical disability without a mental disability."  

Accordingly, LeCause is careful to tailor her instruction to fit each student.   "I try to be as creative as possible because there's a wide variety of needs - the kids are different in here," she said. "I experiment a lot. I try a lot of different things until I find what works."  

When LeCause volunteered last summer for an arts camp at Learning Independence Through Computers (LINC) Inc., she immediately thought it was one of those things that would work for her students.  

Participating in a five-session workshop at LINC, LeCause's students will work in pairs to create computer animation projects based on literature about six successful disabled people, like physicist Stephen Hawking.  

"The academic objective is for them to be able to develop reading, or listening, comprehension," LeCause said. "It's good because they have ... a lot of alternative ways to access the computer. It just seemed like it would work really well."  

Beyond providing new forms of intellectual enrichment, though, LeCause connects with her students and claims that her own disability has allowed her to relate to them on an emotional level as well.  

"They have to work with a lot of support people I've worked with my whole life, so they are things I can help the kids with. It's made me really understand how to help the kids who are nonverbal and the importance of ... helping them to communicate," she said. "The kids have always been really receptive. I've always had a really good relationship with them."  

Because of where she's been and what she's been through, a major part of that relationship is about instilling confidence and self-assurance - a theme that underlies almost all of LeCause's instruction.   "I want the kids to be exposed to people with disabilities [who] have been successful - so they know that there are people out there," she said. "That's one of our mottos - just because someone says you can't do something doesn't mean they know any better than you do."