Bio

Bio

Dr. Diana Parvinchi is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Redeemer University. She completed her PhD at York University, where she examined eye movement patterns in children with Tourette Syndrome and its comorbid conditions, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Following her graduate work, Dr. Parvinchi joined a team of researchers and clinicians at SickKids Hospital, where she helped lead a private/public-initiated project involving a commercial partner, the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI), and SickKids Hospital. The primary aim of this research at SickKids was to apply cognitive training methods to develop a software-based intervention program for children with ADHD.

After Dr. Parvinchi’s work at SickKids, she was awarded the Lawson Fellowship at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University, where she began working on functional imaging and focused on the relationship between brain structures, function, and cognition in children with disabilities, including autism and cerebral palsy.

From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Parvinchi worked at York University, where her primary focus was to help deliver and supervise a large CIHR-funded randomized clinical trial on a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy–based emotion regulation intervention. Following the successful completion of this project, she continued her research at McMaster University with CanChild, examining the validity of a tool designed to classify social communication in Autistic children and youth (the Autism Classification System of Functioning: Social Communication; ACSF:SC).

Dr. Parvinchi’s most recent work has focused on resiliency in children and youth with disabilities. This line of research began at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in 2020 and is ongoing. Her team recently completed a study at Redeemer University examining the efficacy of an intervention designed to strengthen resiliency in young adults, and they will be analyzing the data in 2026. In addition, Dr. Parvinchi is involved in an ongoing fMRI imaging study exploring the neural correlates of resiliency in collaboration with colleagues at Brock University.

Current Focus Areas

Current Focus Areas

• Dr. Parvinchi is currently leading three ongoing projects involving youth and young adults with disabilities, including those with autism:
  • Evaluating a resiliency intervention designed to strengthen coping and adaptability in youth and young adults. Her team has completed the study with young adults and are planning to expand it to youth with disabilities.
  • Investigating the neural correlates of resiliency in children and youth with disabilities – including those with autism, ADHD, and OCD – as well as in typically developing children.
  • Developing and validating a measure of resiliency for youth with disabilities.

Career Highlights

Career Highlights

• Dr. Parvinchi and colleagues published a study demonstrating the relationship between cognitive and emotion regulation in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cch.12868), as well as an umbrella review (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09638288.2024.2374502) identifying key components of resiliency interventions associated with positive outcomes. Together, these studies highlight the central role of self-regulatory skills, and Dr. Parvinchi along with her colleagues are using these insights to inform the design and development of evidence-based interventions for youth with disabilities.