Teresa Grimbos

Last year, I completed my Ph.D. in the Developmental Psychology and Education (DPE) program at OISE. This year, I have returned to school to complete a Masters degree in School and Clinical Child Psychology in order to gain some clinical expertise. During my previous tenure, I studied many topics within the psychosocial realm of developmental psychopathology, including the development and treatment of comorbid internalizing (e.g., depression, anxiety) and externalizing problems (e.g., aggression, conduct problems) in children, factors related to successful outcomes in treatment programs for aggression (e.g., Multisystemic Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy/Parent Management Training), the effects of parent-child dynamics (e.g., co-rumination) and maternal depression on offspring, and gender differences in the development of aggressive behaviour. While studying aggressive children and youth, it became apparent that comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology is quite prevalent in this population. My curiosity about the reasons behind this comorbid relationship grew, and so here I am today working under the supervision of Dr. Judy Wiener with plans to explore this very topic area. Specifically, my goal is to investigate various factors, such as child’s self esteem, social skills, academic achievement, family support and parenting style, that mediate the link between ADHD and comorbid externalizing and internalizing symptoms. I am also interested to examine whether certain mediational processes look differently in boys versus girls.

During my spare-time, I enjoy going to live music concerts, dancing, travelling and whistling the blues.