66 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 1 Like microaggressions, microaffirmations may be intentional or unintentional, but they have a positive rather than a negative impact on people with nondominant racial identities. Eisenman et al. (2020) found all four race-related microaffirmation types identified by Rolón-Dow and Davison (2021)— Microrecognitions, Microvalidations, Microtransformations, and Microprotections—with their sample of people with intellectual disabilities. Finally, Miller and Smith (2021) conducted individual interviews (N = 25) with undergraduate and graduate students who identified as members of the LGBTQ community with a disability. They, too, found Keller and Galgay’s (2010) domains present in their study and identified eight additional categories. Five categories captured cultural components in addition to disability (i.e., Biphobia, Intersectionality Microaggression, Queer Passing/Disclosure, Racism, and Sexism), while the remaining three were specific to ableist microaggression–focused data: Ableism Avoidance, Faculty Accommodations, and Structural Ableism/Inaccessibility. The purpose of our study is to add to the burgeoning disability and microaggressions discourse by analyzing participants’ responses to a qualitative prompt offered to them after they completed the Ableist Microaggression Scale (AMS; Conover et al., 2017b). We corroborate prior research findings while adding novel findings that increase professional knowledge about ableist microaggressions and their impact. Methodology To ensure compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the federal law that requires PWD to have access to electronic information equivalent to that available to nondisabled individuals, we utilized digital accessibility tools on the internet platform used for this study (Qualtrics) and recruited PWD to test the accessibility of the study survey and questions. The data analyzed and reported in this article were part of a larger, IRB-approved study (N = 201) in which we investigated participants’ ableist microaggression experiences quantitatively using the AMS (Conover et al., 2017b) to uncover whether participants’ AMS scores were impacted by visibility of disability, type of disability, and their other nondominant identities (Deroche et al., 2024). After participants completed the survey, they were invited to provide a written response to the open-ended question: “What, if any, information do you think would be helpful for us to know about your personal experiences regarding ableist microaggressions?” Ninety participants (44.77% of the overall sample) responded with rich data that warranted analysis and reporting in an independent article. Because the open-ended question occurred after participants completed the AMS, we agreed that the survey likely influenced their responses, so we chose to conduct a content analysis using an a priori codebook grounded in the AMS subscales (Minimization, Denial of Personhood, Otherization, and Helplessness; Conover et al., 2017b), with additional coding categories for data that did not fit the a priori codes (i.e., Fortitude/Resilience/Coping, Contextual Factors, Impact of Microaggressions/Ableism on Mental Health/Wellness, Microaggression Experiences Are Different Depending on Visibility of Disability, Internalized Ableism, and Microaggressions Include Identities Other Than Disability). Procedure Using online data collection via Qualtrics survey, we recruited participants nationally by contacting disability organizations, listservs, social media, and professional contacts who work with organizations that serve PWD. The recruitment included a description of the research; inclusion criteria; and a confidential, anonymized survey link. The survey was Section 508–compliant and optimized to be taken on a computer or mobile device. Data were collected over a 3-month period.
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