Quality of Life and Life Skill Baseline Measures of Urban Adolescents with Disabilities

Abstract

Many gaps exist in the understanding of how adolescents with disabilities successfully transition to adulthood and the services contributing to this success. This study attempts to fill one gap by establishing quality of life baseline measures for low-income urban adolescents. We compared baseline data for a representative sample of adolescents with disabilities in the District of Columbia to national norms using three instruments—the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0, the Ansell-Casey Life Skills Assessment, and the Career Maturity Inventory-Attitude Scale. The sample for this study was primarily African American and had a higher level of disability as measured by receipt of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The baseline scores of the adolescents in DC may be lower than the normed scores of their peers with disabilities in the U.S. because of socioeconomic and racial inequities and because the population has to contend with greater levels of disabilities.