While the $\alpha$-filtered colimit idea does not work, Brown representability can be proved efficiently for these categories. Use the fact that an $\alpha$-presentable $\infty$-category is reflective in a finitely presentable one, and steal Brown representability from there--it's easy to prove that a reflective subcategory of a category on which every functor preserving coproducts and weak pushouts is representable enjoys the same properties. When the resulting finitely presentable $\infty$-category is generated by a set of compact cogroups, you win. Unfortunately, as discussed above, the homotopy categories of finitely presentable $\infty$-categories do not usually have Brown representability available to steal. There is a way out: the spheres do detect isomorphisms in the homotopy 2-category of the $\infty$-category of spaces, and from there it follows that the whole Brown representability story goes through perfectly for all $\alpha$-presentable $\infty$-categories--the only cost is that you have to take functors valued in groupoids, not in sets. Your mileage may vary on how "citeable" this is, but see 5.3.6 in my 2020 thesis, Some 2-categorical aspects of $\infty$-category theory2-categorical Brown representability and the relation between derivators and $\infty$-categories.