author: Elizabeth E. Biggs, Erik W. Carter The purpose of this study was to investigate the quality of life of young people served under the special education categories of autism or ID. We sought to answer three research questions. First, how do parents depict the quality of life of their sons and daughters with disabilities across different domains? We anticipated these ratings would be moderately low and reflect considerable variability across individual domains. Second, to what extent do ratings of quality of life differ from normative sample ratings based on special education category (i.e., autism, ID without autism)? We anticipated both of these groups would have lower ratings than a normative sample across all of quality of life domains. Third, what factors predict ratings of quality of life for transition-age youth with ASD or ID? We hypothesized personal traits and connections (i.e., self-determination, strengths, community activities, religious faith) would have predictive power over and above demographic- and disability- related characteristics (i.e., age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, communication, presence of challenging behaviors, functional abilities, support needs). The first and third questions focused on the entire sample of youth, while the second question divided the sample into youth with or without autism.