We Must Do Better: Trends in Disability Representation Among Pre-Doctoral Internship Applicants

There is a dearth of data on the representation of disability among professional psychology doctoral students, especially data that includes disability type. In order to help fill this gap, data on disability from the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) internship applicant survey reports from 2005 to 2018 was analyzed to assess for trends in representation of both disability overall and different disability types. I also analyzed trends in the proportion of survey respondents with disabilities who reported each disability type. The number and proportion of survey respondents with disabilities increased significantly over time but never exceeded 14%. This was driven by significant increases in the number of respondents reporting chronic health conditions, mental illness, and learning or cognitive disabilities; the number of participants with other types of disabilities did not significantly change. Additionally, the proportion of participants with disabilities who reported having a mental illness increased over time. These results indicate mixed success in increasing the representation of psychology trainees with disabilities.