Saavedra, Sandra

Sandra Saavedra, PT, PhD is an Associate Professor and pediatric researcher with more than 20 years of clinical experience in pediatric physical therapy. Her clinical experience, combined with strong doctoral and postdoctoral research opportunities, contributes to her focus on translating clinical needs into research projects and thus improving the evidence base in pediatric physical therapy. Her research teams are multidisciplinary, including students from Physical Therapy, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Biomedical and Electrical Engineering and Special Education. Saavedra directs the Pediatric Balance Laboratory in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and has been funded by NIH and NSF. Saavedra's goal is to understand how segmental levels of trunk control influence and interact with sensorimotor function (e.g. eye-head-hand coordination, reaching, sitting, standing, and walking) during typical and atypical development. She designs longitudinal studies involving young infants with typical development and uses the information gained to design comparable studies involving children who have cerebral palsy or other neurologic deficits. In this manner she hopes to create theoretically sound and empirically proven treatments that will improve mobility and health in children with moderate-to-severe motor impairment. Saavedra has spoken at national and international pediatric and therapy conferences on trunk control and measurement.