“Man kan inte lämna de där,men man ska inte heller ta detifrån dem.” : En kvalitativ studie om skolkuratorers förståelse av och arbete med problematiskt dataspelande hos skolåldersbarn med autismspektrumtillstånd.

Sammanfattning

The aim of this study was to investigate how school counselors understand problemgaming in school-age youths with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as well as howthey approach problem gaming in that population in their work role. This qualitativestudy is based on semi-structured interviews with eight individual school counselorsemployed at schools within Kalmar County, Sweden. Three themes were identifiedfrom descriptions of problem gaming in the ASD youths: causal factors, definitionof the problem, and impact. Two further themes were identified regarding the schoolcounselors approaches to problem gaming: their own work, and division ofresponsibility. The analysis of the data was based on two main theoreticalviewpoints within professional knowledge theories comprised of two distinctions ofknowledge types, one focusing on so-called naïve theories grounded mainly in lifeand work experience, and the other focusing on identifying scientific knowledge. Aconclusion drawn in the study is that the school counselors as a semi-professionhave room to incorporate knowledge based in existing scientific research regardingthe cognitive properties of ASD as well as the phenomenon of problem gaming inchildren with ASD and appear to rely largely on individual-focused naïve theories inunderstanding and approaching the problem. However, we can not with certaintystate which knowledge is wholly scientific or based squarely in knowledgeaccumulated in practice.