Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Research Scholarships - Master's program

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder that causes inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity in affected people. This disorder is often under-diagnosed in females. Females with ADHD often show increased difficulty controlling their emotions, as well as increased instances of being worried and withdrawn, which are categorized as internalizing behaviours. These difficulties are often explained in literature using a schema model, where schemas are persistent cognitive-emotional patterns which shape emotional and social functioning. These early maladaptive schemas become very common in adolescent years, as this time in life is full of social sensitivity, emotional changes, and self-discovery. Some research suggests that there are brain-developmental links between emotional control issues and ADHD, and these findings may show that early maladaptive schemas may serve as the developmental link between emotional vulnerability and emotional control issues in adolescent girls with ADHD. Participants in this study will take part in a number of surveys assessing emotion recognition, math anxiety, impulse control, ADHD information, early maladaptive schemas, and emotional regulation in order to identify common maladaptive schemas in adolescent females with ADHD, and examine the relationship between these schemas and difficulties in emotional control. This research will provide a deeper understanding of ADHD in adolescent females. It will also be the first study to look at these schemas as predictors of emotional control difficulties and math anxiety in females with ADHD, contributing to the gap in the literature.