Sheri Madigan

Verified

Sheri verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Sheri verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Calgary

Les données préliminaires indiquent que la première année de la pandémie a été associée à une augmentation de la détresse mentale chez les enfants, les adolescents et leurs familles dans le monde entier. Il était généralement présumé que les enfants se remettraient une fois les perturbations initiales de la pandémie, comme les fermetures d’écoles,...

Background This longitudinal study with multi‐informant (maternal, paternal, and experimenter) and multimethod (questionnaires, behavioral observations, and standardized assessments) data tests an intergenerational model from mothers' adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to their children's socio‐emotional and cognitive outcomes. Methods Participa...

CONTEXT Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is associated with adverse impacts on subsequent generations. The extent to which caregiver ACEs are associated with their child’s ACE score is unclear. OBJECTIVE To meta-analytically examine the association between caregiver and child ACE score. Potential moderators of this association were...

Background: Fathers remain neglected in attachment research, despite paternal sensitivity being important for children's development. Past research suggested that fathers' parenting may be influenced by contextual factors, including relationship functioning between parents. Objective: This meta-analysis examined the association between paternal...

As family forms become increasingly diverse, their underrepresentation in attachment research is glaring. Although attachment theory aims to explain the influence of early relationships, studies have disproportionately focused on mothers. Even when other attachment figures are considered, the research is typically limited to fathers in biparental m...

The pervasiveness of digital media and the importance of language skills underscore a pressing need to understand the role of media in language development. Historically, research has focused on the quantity of children’s media use but there has been a recent focus on content (i.e., the kinds of media that children use), context (i.e., who children...

Researchers are increasingly asking questions about the complex ways in which digital media transects family life for the purpose of understanding health and development. Most research in this domain is informed by theoretical models that champion the primacy of individuals (i.e., the child). However, family systems theory (FST) has long emphasized...

Amid the rapidly evolving digital age, caregivers are adapting their parenting strategies to effectively navigate and co-exist within this new landscape. Each chapter in this section on parenting in the digital age focuses on distinct facets and/or ages related to this overarching theme, with a collective goal of supporting a comprehensive understa...

Importance Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before the age of 18 years is a major contributor to the global burden of disease and disability. Objective To meta-analyze data from samples with children 18 years or younger to estimate the average prevalence of ACEs, identify characteristics and contexts associated with higher or lower...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is associated with increases in child mental health problems, but the persistence of these changes in the post-pandemic era remains uncertain. Additionally, it is unclear whether changes in mental health problems during the pandemic exceed the anticipated increases as children age. This study controls for the linear...

Support has been found for the intergenerational transmission of risk from maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to child outcomes. Less research has focused on longitudinal psychosocial pathways that account for this transmission. In the current study, path analysis examined mediating pathways (i.e., maternal adult attachment insecurity, r...

Objective Knowing the prevalence of mental health difficulties in young children is critical for early identification and intervention. In the current study, we examine the agreement among three different data sources estimating the prevalence of diagnoses for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and emotional disorders (i.e., anxiety or...

Background Pediatric chronic pain (i.e., pain lasting ≥ 3 months) is prevalent, disabling, and costly. It spikes in adolescence, interrupts psychosocial development and functioning, and often co-occurs with mental health problems. Chronic pain often begins spontaneously without prior injuries and/or other disorders. Prospective longitudinal cohort...

Importance The digital phenomenon termed technoference refers to interruptions in routine social interactions due to technology use. Technoference may negatively affect parents’ attention to cues necessary for supporting children’s mental health. Objective To explore whether there are directional prospective associations between perceived parental...

Adolescent dating violence (ADV) is a pervasive public health issue associated with numerous social, psychological, and physical health consequences. Thus, programs are often implemented to prevent ADV and promote healthy relationships. Although there is a growing body of literature on primary ADV prevention strategies (i.e., prevention), little is...

Mary Main's written work profoundly changed the direction of attachment research through her publications and through her teachings. The current study describes the scientific impact of her her published and unpublished work. We identified 85 such works. Web of Sciences contained k = 7,571 citations to these works from by 13,398 unique authors. The...

The current meta-analysis examined the mediating role of sensitive-responsive parenting in the relationship between depression in mothers and internalizing and externalizing behavior in children. A systematic review of the path of maternal sensitive responsiveness to child psychopathology identified eligible studies. Meta-analytic structural equati...

Community agencies and practitioners around the globe seek opportunities to learn various assessment tools and interventions rooted in attachment theory. However, information regarding the feasibility of implementation and sustainability of these tools once participants have been trained to use them, is limited. This study investigated the perceive...

Sensitive caregiving behavior, which involves the ability to notice, interpret, and quickly respond to a child’s signals of need and/or interest, is a central determinant of secure child–caregiver attachment. Yet, significant heterogeneity in effect sizes exists across the literature, and sources of heterogeneity have yet to be explained. For all c...

Mary Main’s written work profoundly changed the direction of attachment research. She disseminated her ideas partly through her publications and partly through her teachings in which she circulated both published and unpublished materials. The aim of the current study was to describe the scientific impact of her writings through her published and u...

A growing body of research suggests that, compared with single parent–child attachment relationships, child developmental outcomes may be better understood by examining the configurations of child–mother and child–father attachment relationships (i.e., attachment networks). Moreover, some studies have demonstrated an above-chance level chance of co...

Objective To determine whether differences in post-concussive symptoms (PCS) between children with concussion or orthopedic injuries (OI) are moderated by injury setting (i.e., sport-related versus non-sport-related). Design/Setting/Participants Prospective cohort study including children ages 8–16 with concussion (n=529; sport-related=81.9%) or O...

Parental factors, including pathological narcissism, a maladaptive form of personality style which is characterized by pronounced interpersonal problems, may confer vulnerability to children’s experiences of depression. However, the mechanisms underlying this risk remain largely unexplored. Our longitudinal study assessed whether parent pathologica...

Screening for social determinants of health, including maternal depression, is a recommended pediatric practice. However, the magnitude of association between maternal and child screening tools remains to be determined. The current study evaluated the association between maternal postnatal depressive symptoms and child developmental milestones, as...

Background A positive child-caregiver relationship is one of the strongest determinants of child health and development, yet many caregivers report challenges in establishing a positive relationship with their child. For over 20 years, Make the Connection® (MTC), an evidence-based parenting program, has been delivered in-person by child-caring prof...

Background : Although 24-hour movement behaviors are known to be interconnected, limited knowledge exists about whether change in one behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic (eg, increased screen time) was associated with change in another (eg, reduced physical activity or sleep). This review estimates mediational associations between changes in chil...

An individual participant data meta-analysis was conducted to test pre-registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers and fathers predicts children's language competence. Data from seven studies (published between 1985 and 2014) including 719 children (Mage : 19.84 months; 51% female; 87% White) were includ...

An individual participant data meta-­ analysis was conducted to test pre-­ registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers and fathers predicts children's language competence. Data from seven studies (published between 1985 and 2014) including 719 children (Mage: 19.84 months; 51% female; 87% White) were inc...

Mental health problems are common among parents of children with chronic pain and associated with worse outcomes for the child with chronic pain. However, the effect sizes of these associations between parent mental health and pediatric chronic pain vary widely across studies. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to generate pool...

A programmatic set of meta-analyses by Groh et al. (e.g., Groh et al., 2017a) and Madigan et al. (e.g., Madigan et al., 2023) demonstrated that secure child-caregiver attachments are positively associated with children’s social and emotional development, with somewhat stronger associations identified in relation to social competence and (lower) ext...

Purpose This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to examine the association between language skills and social competence in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and to assess the potential moderators of these associations. Method The study was reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analys...

Exposure to abuse in childhood can have long-term implications for physical and mental health across the life course, including the perinatal period. However, bourgeoning research demonstrates that child abuse experiences are far from deterministic, with several factors contributing to resilience in the face of adversity. This chapter provides an o...

This Viewpoint discusses the role of childhood developmental stage in research evaluating the effects of screen use among youth and its application to practice, policy, and the public.

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including maltreatment and family dysfunction, is a major contributor to the global burden of disease and disability. With a large body of international literature on ACEs having emerged over the past 25 years, it is timely to now synthetize the available evidence to estimate the global prevalence o...

Observational studies have shown that caregiver sensitivity predicts child language skills. These studies, however, have entirely relied on between-family designs (single parent–child dyad per family), which cannot rule out the contribution of shared family confounds (e.g., genetics, books in home). The current study investigates whether observed c...

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can be associated with negative health outcomes such as substance use. However, extant literature assessing this association is mixed. Objective: The present meta-analysis was conducted to obtain a pooled effect size for the association between ACEs and substance use (i.e., smoking, problematic al...

This scoping review aimed to address the following questions: (1) Does mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) result in more parental distress or poorer family functioning than other injuries?; (2) Does pre-injury or acute parental distress and family functioning predict post-concussive symptoms (PCS) after mTBI?; and (3) Do acute PCS predict later par...

Longitudinal changes in maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms and predictors of symptom variation among a group of middle-to-upper income Canadian women (n = 2152) were examined prior to the pandemic (2017-2019) and at three pandemic timepoints (May-July 2020, March-April 2021, November-December 2021). Mean maternal depression and anxiety scores...

Background: Exposure to sexual content, such as online pornography or live sexual content, has been posited in the literature as a risk factor for problematic sexual behaviors (PSBs) in children and adolescents, and has been identified as an important avenue for research and intervention, particularly given the ubiquitous access to technology amon...

Based on interviews with leading researchers and researcher-clinicians in fields allied to attachment research, this paper describes participants’ perceptions of contemporary attachment research in the developmental tradition. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 research leaders in applied disciplines cognate to attachment...

Importance: There is a growing body of high-quality cohort-based research that has examined changes in child and adolescent mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic vs before the pandemic. Some studies have found that child and adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms have increased, while others have found these symptoms to have remained stab...

This cohort study compared children’s recreational screen time with screen time before the COVID-19 pandemic and during 3 pandemic waves to examine whether changes in screen time were greater than those associated with age.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) represents a significant public health concern. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) represent one risk factor for IPV, however, the results of existing research on the association between ACEs and IPV demonstrate mixed findings. The present research sought to meta-analytically examine the association between ACEs an...

Screening for social determinants of health, including maternal depression, has become a common and recommended pediatric practice. However, the magnitude of association between maternal and child screening tools remains to be determined. The current study evaluated the association between maternal postnatal depressive symptoms and child developmen...

Screening for social determinants of health, including maternal depression, has become a common and recommended pediatric practice. However, the magnitude of association between maternal and child screening tools remains to be determined. The current study evaluated the association between maternal postnatal depressive symptoms and child developmen...

This meta-analysis synthesized the distribution of attachment classifications as coded with the Cassidy-Marvin Preschool Attachment Coding System and the Main-Cassidy Six-Year-Old System. These systems have extended scholars’ capacity to measure differences in the developing child-parent attachment relationship, and its sequelae, beyond the infancy...

Youth engagement in research, which involves meaningfully collaborating with youth as full partners in the research process, has contributed to improved research collaborations, enhanced youth participation, and increased motivation for researchers to address scientific questions relevant to youth. Engaging youth as partners in the research process...

Background: There is a lack of consensus about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children and adolescents. We aimed to compare rates of paediatric emergency department visits for attempted suicide, self-harm, and suicidal ideation during the pandemic with those before the pandemic. Methods: For this systematic review an...

The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) was developed five decades ago to assess infant–parent attachment relationships. Although the procedure itself has remained relatively constant in over 285 studies (20,720 dyads) conducted to date, there have been vast sociological changes during this time, and research foci shifts to studying diverse populatio...

Although numerous individual studies have attempted to link child-parent attachment and prosociality, a systematic picture of that relation requires a meta-analytic approach that considers different dimensions of prosociality and potential moderators. The current meta-analysis examined 41 studies drawn primarily from North America and Europe and pu...

Importance: To limit the spread of COVID-19, numerous restrictions were imposed on youths, including school closures, isolation requirements, social distancing, and cancelation of extracurricular activities, which independently or collectively may have shifted screen time patterns. Objective: To estimate changes in the duration, content, and con...

Screen use is now a common part of children's daily lives and is embedded in the many layers that influence children's development. Following a brief review of typical areas of young children's development, including language and socioemotional skills, this chapter explores the risks and benefits of screen use in children. We highlight the current...

OBJECTIVES: To determine the association between early screen time (7–10 days postinjury) and postconcussion symptom severity in children and adolescents with concussion, as compared to those with orthopedic injury (OI). METHODS: This was a planned secondary analysis of a prospective longitudinal cohort study. Participants were 633 children and ado...

Objectives: To determine the association between early screen time (7-10 days postinjury) and postconcussion symptom severity in children and adolescents with concussion, as compared to those with orthopedic injury (OI). Methods: This was a planned secondary analysis of a prospective longitudinal cohort study. Participants were 633 children and...

This article presents a strategy for the initial step of data harmonization in Individual Participant Data syntheses, i.e., making decisions as to which measures operationalize the constructs of interest - and which do not. This step is vital in the process of data harmonization, because a study can only be as good as its measures. If the construct...

An individual participant data meta-analysis was used to test pre-registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers and fathers predicts children’s language competence. Data collected from seven studies (published between 1985 and 2014) and 719 children (mean age: 19.84 months; 51.2% female; 86.9% White) were...

In molti contesti professionali, compreso quello del Tribunale per i minorenni, si fa riferimento alla teoria dell'attaccamento e alla relativa ricerca, con fraintendimenti ampiamente diffusi che spesso si traducono in applicazioni scorrette. La finalità di questa dichiarazione di consenso è, pertanto, quella di migliorarne la comprensione, contras...

Importance: Numerous physical distancing measures were implemented to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which could have negatively affected child and adolescent physical activity levels. Objectives: To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature that used validated measures to document changes in child and adolescen...

In the original article [...]

Objectives Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes in pregnancy, prompting many care agencies to ask about ACEs as part of routine care. However, limited research has been conducted in the clinical setting to demonstrate associations between ACEs and maternal health (i.e., pregnancy complica...

In the interconnected family context, caregivers' digital media use holds important implications for children's developmental outcomes via parent-child relationships. This may be particularly salient during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when caregivers were more reliant on technology than ever before. This study examined caregivers' ps...

Un tiers des enfants au Canada subissent une forme de maltraitance pendant leur enfance, expérience qui est associée à des problèmes de santé mentale, émotionnels et de comportement à l’âge adulte. Toutefois, la maltraitance est loin d’avoir un effet déterministe, car nombreux sont les enfants qui s’adaptent à l’adversité. Au cours des 30 dernières...

Importance: Currently, there is a lack of consensus in the literature on the association between screen time (eg, television, video games) and children's behavior problems. Objective: To assess the association between the duration of screen time and externalizing and internalizing behavior problems among children 12 years or younger. Data sourc...

Unresolved states of mind regarding experiences of loss/abuse (U/d) are identified through lapses in the monitoring of reasoning, discourse, and behavior surrounding loss/abuse in response to the Adult Attachment Interview. Although the coding system for U/d has been widely used for decades, the individual indicators of unresolved loss/abuse have n...

Objective To provide a systematic review of studies examining the proportion of children with persistent post-concussive symptoms (PPCS) and to examine potential moderators of prevalence. Study design Searches were conducted in Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus, and CENTRAL on April 16, 2020. Inclusion criteria were children <18 years with concuss...

Meta‐analytic associations between observed parental sensitivity and child behavioral problems were examined (children aged 0–17 years). Studies (k = 108, N = 28,114) contained sociodemographically diverse samples, primarily from North America and Europe, reporting on parent‐child dyads (95% mothers; 54% boys). Sensitivity significantly related to...

On comprend maintenant de plus en plus que la recherche translationnelle doit être co-créée en collaboration avec des partenaires communautaires et que les solutions aux problèmes sociaux nécessitent de sortir du silo universitaire. Cependant, moins de la moitié des programmes de psychologie au Canada offrent des cours d’évaluation communautaire, l...

Past research has demonstrated that romantic attachment insecurity is a risk factor for dating violence in adolescence. However, few studies to date have longitudinally examined whether earlier relational experience, such as perceived closeness with parents, may serve as an antecedent of this relationship. To examine longitudinal associations among...

Importance: Pediatric guidelines suggest that infants younger than 2 years avoid screen time altogether, while children aged 2 to 5 years receive no more than 1 hour per day. Although these guidelines have been adopted around the world, substantial variability exists in adherence to the guidelines, and precise estimates are needed to inform public...

La théorie et les recherches sur l’attachement sont utilisées dans de nombreux cadres d’application, y compris dans les tribunaux compétents en matière familiale [1], mais les incompréhensions sont fréquentes et sources d’erreurs lorsqu’il s’agit de les mettre en pratique. L’objectif de cet article de consensus est donc d’accroître la compréhension...

Children exposed to child sexual abuse (CSA) vary considerably with regards to their presenting concerns and treatment needs. One factor creating heterogeneity amongst children experiencing CSA is their history of experiencing other victimizations (i.e., poly-victimized or not). However, little is known about risk factors for poly-victimization as...

An unsettled question in attachment theory and research is the extent to which children's attachment patterns with mothers and fathers jointly predict developmental outcomes. In this study, we used individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis to assess whether early attachment networks with mothers and fathers are associated with children's inte...

Socio-demographic risks are associated with higher child screen time and higher screen time is associated with poor socioemotional and developmental health. Existing studies have not examined children’s screen time as a mechanism through which distal risks may be associated with child outcomes. In the current study, we examined whether two proximal...

Objective: Research suggests that children's screen use during the COVID-19 pandemic has doubled. There is a need to understand factors associated with increased use to more adequately inform COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts aimed at promoting healthy device habits. The objective of this multi-informant study of children aged 9 to 11 years was t...

Parents have experienced considerable challenges and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may impact their well-being. This meta-analysis sought to identify: (1) the prevalence of depression and anxiety in parents of young children (<age 5) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) sociodemographic (e.g., parent age, being racially minoritized) a...