Stephanie DeLuca, Ph.D.
“We owe every child the ability to grow, and learn, and maximize their development.”
Helping children overcome neuromotor disabilities
How can occupational therapy help children with impaired motor skills?
Strokes are devastating events often associated with people over 65. But large numbers of infants have strokes, too, which can cause permanent neuromotor impairments. For more than 25 years, Stephanie Deluca, Ph.D., has studied how intensive neurorehabilitation treatments help children and adults with these impairments.
Dr. DeLuca has helped develop and rigorously test multiple neurorehabilitation therapy protocols and led numerous clinical research trials. Her interdisciplinary research efforts have included; engagement of families, international training, and innovative teaching to prepare the next generation of clinicians and scientists.
Dr. DeLuca has served as Co-PI on two NIH-funded multisite comparative effectiveness trials, and currently serves as a co-investigator and site- PI on the largest pediatric neurorehabilitation trial ever funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. In addition, she has served as a consultant for Humanity Inclusion funded by USAID and as a co-investigator on two global-health initiative grants funded by the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. DeLuca envisions “precision rehabilitation treatments” that can help all individuals impacted by neuromotor impairments by combining knowledge from diverse disciplines & communities to develop new evidenced-based rehabilitation techniques world-wide.
Dr. DeLuca believes that research should serve to empower the individuals, families, and communities impacted by disability and seeks to use research to complete this goal. Dr. DeLuca has also served as a national leader by serving as a Director at Large on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) and previously chaired the Advocacy Committee for this organization and on the Treatment Outcomes Committee. Currently, she serves on the Care Pathways Committee for AACPDM. Before joining Virginia Tech, Dr. DeLuca was a faculty member in the department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she worked to train the next generation of therapists to be both clinicians and scientists.
stephdeluca@vt.edu
540-526-2033 or 540-526-2098
- Associate Professor, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
- Director, Neuromotor Research Clinic
- Associate Professor, School of Neuroscience, College of Science
- Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine
DeLuca SC, Trucks MR, Wallace DA, Ramey SL. (2017). Practice-based evidence from a clinical cohort that received pediatric constraint- induced movement therapy. Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine 10: 37-46.
Coker-Bolt P, Ramey SL, DeLuca SC. (2016). Promoting evidence-based practices abroad: Developing a Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy program in Ethiopia. OT Practice 21(2): 21-23.
Coker-Bolt P, DeLuca SC, Ramey SL. (2015). Training pediatric therapists to deliver constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Occupational Therapy International.
- Director, Pediatric Neuromotor Research Clinic, Civitan International Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Related Professions, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Associate Scientist, Center for Exercise Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- University of Alabama Birmingham: Ph.D., Developmental Psychology
- Oustanding Research Mentor, VTC School of Medicine, 2019
- Outstanding Graduate Student, Developmental Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2002
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Article Item‘The right place’: Sisters with rare disorder find help , article
Sisters with a very rare genetic mutation that affects brain development are benefitting from a form of intensive therapy being studied at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Neuromotor Research Clinic.
Date: Feb 03, 2023 -
Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute expands Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program , article
More than 30 undergraduate and high school students worked behind the curtain of biomedical research this summer at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.
Date: Aug 16, 2022 -
Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute occupational therapists train colleagues, treat children in Morocco clinic , article
Kelsey Burke and Megan Price, occupational therapists in the Neuromotor Research Clinic at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, took a personal volunteer trip to Morocco with a humanitarian group last year. They educated therapists and parents in pediatric therapy techniques.
Date: Mar 02, 2022 -
Article ItemRare disease research gives families hope, ‘vital’ to advancing medicine , article
Rare diseases afflict 300 million people worldwide. Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC researchers are bridging a gap in scientific knowledge by studying some of the diseases that together add up to a formidable public health challenge. Feb. 28 marks the 14th international Rare Disease Day.
Date: Feb 28, 2022 -
Article ItemLarge doses of intensive therapy better for children with cerebral palsy, Virginia Tech scientists, partners find , article
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, shows that higher doses of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy – 20 three-hour sessions over four weeks – yield significant and lasting improvement in use of their arms and hands, especially in everyday functional activities.
Date: Oct 14, 2021 -
Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute graduate student awarded NIH Fellowship to examine balance, walking in children with cerebral palsy , article
Hassan Farah, a Virginia Tech translational biology, medicine, and health graduate student, has been awarded a $98,000 National Institutes of Health grant that will fund his remaining predoctoral research. Farah is studying the limb biomechanics, joint movements, and loading in children with cerebral palsy.
Date: Feb 01, 2021 -
Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute, partners pioneer nation’s first pediatric rehabilitation resource center , article
Research partners across three institutions are opening the nation’s first and only resource center, known as C-PROGRESS, dedicated to promoting clinical trials research in the rapidly expanding field of pediatric rehabilitation.
Date: Jul 21, 2020 -
Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute to explore how a baby’s brain develops at Brain School , article
This year’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC Brain School speaker lineup features interactive presentations about what influences early brain development and how these factors relate to infant health.
Date: Feb 27, 2020 -
Article ItemNation’s first clinical trial for rehabilitating infant stroke victims to begin , article
Called I-ACQUIRE, the Phase III clinic trial will examine the effectiveness of a pediatric therapy to increase upper extremity skills, gross motor development, and cognition in 240 children nationwide who experienced strokes when they were under 4 weeks old.
Date: Mar 25, 2019 -
Article ItemVTC School of Medicine names Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Stephanie DeLuca as 2019 Outstanding Research Mentor , article
DeLuca, a developmental psychologist who also holds faculty appointments in the VTCSOM and the Virginia Tech College of Science, has been a Fralin Biomedical Research Institute faculty member for six years. She develops neurorehabilitation treatment techniques for both children and adults.
Date: Mar 05, 2019 -
Article ItemVTCRI researcher, VTCSOM student team up to teach innovative treatment to Vietnamese therapists , article
The therapy is based on studies of the effects of prolonged disuse by parts of the brain that may occur as a result of cerebral palsy or after stroke.
Date: Jun 06, 2018 -
Article ItemVTCRI researchers join forces to improve life for children with genetic disorder , article
The accomplishments of three girls who received intensive therapy based on innovative pediatric neurorehabilitation research at the VTCRI have been documented in a report published in BMC Research Notes.
Date: Mar 22, 2018 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute to host Brain Awareness Week , article
Scientists will reveal more about what they have learned about the brain’s developmental journey when the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute opens its doors for its fifth annual Brain School during Brain Awareness Week from March 13-19.
Date: Feb 15, 2017
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