Dr Jeneva Ohan

Biography

Jeneva joined the School of Pyschology and Counselling at QUT in 2009 and has previously taught in Canada and Australia.
Background

• awarded BSc(Hons) in Psychology at McMaster University - Canada


• completed her Master's and PhD in clinical psychology - Vancouver


• completed her clinical residency - University of Washington's School of Medicine, Seattle, USA


• held an academic appointment at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan - Canada.

Her primary training has been as a child clinical psychologist in the scientist-practitioner tradition.
Broad areas of research

• attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)


• ADHD related disruptive behaviour disorders (oppostional-defiant disorder and conduct disorder).

Specific areas of research
Why parents and teachers are reluctant to seek professional mental health services for children with this disorder

In particular, Jeneva is interested in why girls with ADHD are far less likely to receive treatment than boys.
She has also recently become interested in stigma surrounding ADHD and childhood psychiatric disorders more generally, and whether or not these stigmas result in reluctance to seek out and use mental health services.
Jeneva's ultimate aim would be to develop a program to overcome stigmas and other barriers that prevent children from getting mental health services.
How ADHD and disruptive behaviour disorders (especially aggressive symptoms) look in girls

Although many studies in this area have concentrated on boys, relatively few have focused on girls.
Jeneva has (and continues to) conduct studies that look at how girls develop and express:

• ADHD


• disruptive behaviour disorders


• aggression

and how that impacts their development.
The development of children's views of their self-competence and why children with ADHD and aggression tend to grossly overestimate their competence, whereas typically-developing children only modestly overestimate their abilities

Jeneva has found that the modest overestimates that most children hold about their abilities relate to psycho-social well-being, whereas the gross over-estimates offered by children with ADHD relate to maladjustment.
Future research
Jeneva is planning studies to:

• look at how children with ADHD form these overestimates of their abilities


• develop and test a treatment aimed to decrease these overestimates to more normative (and presumably healthy) levels.