Children with autism are frequently offered behavioral intervention services to treat the myriad of symptoms associated with this diagnosis. These services are often paid for by third parties such as governments or insurance companies. As it is in the best interest of those funding the services to keep the costs low, policy-makers often cite the lack of substantial research on behavioral intervention as a justification for withholding or reducing services. Such policy decisions leave children with autism and their family at risk for losing access to the intervention with the strongest evidence-base. Previous researchers have shown that some children in behavioral intervention programs make significant gains, and others make few or none. In most of these studies however, the outcomes are often limited to a narrow range of measures such as cognitive functioning and adaptive behavior. Absent from the research is a demonstration that in addition to (or instead of) significant gains in cognitive or adaptive functioning, behavioral interventions may significantly improve the child and family quality of life. The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to investigate the effect of behavioral intervention on quality of life for children with autism and their families. Parents of children with autism were asked to complete an online survey about their child, the interventions their child had received, and their quality of life. Their responses were analyzed both individually and also according to the intervention type. Parents of the children who had received behavioral intervention reported that they were happier and satisfied with their lives more often than the parents of the children who had not received behavioral intervention. This pattern emerged across all of the quality of life themes explored. The results from this study may encourage researchers to include a standardized measure of quality of life in future research on this topic. If the results from this study can be extended, then policy-makers may draw conclusions on the effectiveness of behavioral intervention from these outcome measures. This, in turn may justify the cost of the services for all children, and not only those with significant cognitive and adaptive improvements. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]