Clinical Utility and Psychometric Properties of the Ableist Microaggressions Scale

Microaggressions are verbal or behavioral indignities that communicate slights or insults toward someone based on marginalized social group membership (Pierce et al., 1977; Sue et al., 2007). Several scales have been developed to measure microaggressions based on race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, facilitating numerous studies, but comparatively less attention has been given to microaggressions toward disabled people (Mercer et al., 2011; Torres-Harding et al., 2012; Wright & Wegner, 2012). Hence, Conover and colleagues (2017) developed and validated the selfreport Ableist Microaggressions Scale (AMS), (Conover et al., 2017). Using factor analysis, the authors identified four subscales, including Helplessness, Minimization, Denial of Personhood, and Otherization. The psychometric properties of the AMS have been examined with adults with a range of disability types (e.g., chronic illness, physical impairment, psychiatric disability, blindness or low vision, deafness or hardness of hearing, and brain injury), visibility, onset, and severity (see Table 1 for further information). © 2022 American Psychological Association