The purpose of this study was to explore the explicit attitudes and literacy of licensed professional counselors (LPCs) and licensed professional clinical counselors (LPCCs) towards people with intellectual disabilities (ID). More specifically, this study explored the influence of literacy variables (recognition, causal beliefs, intervention beliefs, and social distance) and demographic variables (gender, number of years practicing, quantitative and qualitative personal experience, quantitative and qualitative professional experience, and additional education) on explicit attitudes (discomfort, knowledge of capacity and rights, interaction, sensitivity/tenderness, and knowledge of causes). This study used descriptive statistics to explore the explicit attitudes and literacy of counselors, as well as regression analyses to examine the data collected from a sample of active LPCs and LPCCs in the state of Ohio (N = 148). There were four key findings in this study. First, overall counselors in this study mostly hold positive attitudes and high levels of literacy toward people with ID. Second, counselors make distinctions in the areas of discomfort, interaction, and sensitivity/tenderness depending on the severity of the person's ID. The third key finding was counselors are not primed to consider intellectual disability as a diagnosis when they encounter a potential client. The last key finding is that there were significant predictors of literacy and as well as certain individual demographics that contributed significantly to the ability to predict a counselor's attitude toward people with ID. The literacy variable of social distance predicted the attitude toward interaction, and intervention beliefs predicted the attitude of sensitivity/tenderness. Additionally, the demographic variables of quantity of personal experience and quality of professional experience predicted attitudes toward interaction and quantity of professional experience predicted attitudes of sensitivity/tenderness. The results of this study not only fill a gap in research regarding counselors and ID, but also provide empirical support for the relationship between literacy, demographics, and attitudes, suggesting that a counselors' literacy, quantity of personal experience, quality and quantity of professional experience have an impact on a counselors' attitude toward people with ID. [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://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]