Professionellas tankar och erfarenheter om autism i spåren av covid-19 : En kvalitativ studie

Sammanfattning: This study is a qualitative study on professionals' thoughts and experiences about autism in the wake of covid-19. To investigate this, three people who are professional psychologists in different fields with experience on people with autism participated through individual interviews via Zoom of between 25 to 55 minutes.         The results of the study are based on the material from these interviews that were reworked from audio file to transcription, which in turn was analyzed with thematic analysis carried out in a six-step process. The thematic analysis resulted in five themes: introverted/extrovert human autism, need for clarity when unclear, reduced risk of being identified as odd – the digital rescue, support and actions and  post-pandemic response and evaluation.          Conclusions that can be drawn from the results of the study are that as a result of the restrictions on social distance, people with autism and neurotypical people suffer approximately equally based on whether the person is socially interested or not. People with autism during the covid-19 pandemic may have gotten it in part better, those who previously asked for distance learning or opportunities to work remotely from their own home have now been given the opportunity. It is important that people with autism receive the support they need during the pandemic from, for example, school health teams. After the pandemic, evaluations of what worked and not during the pandemic for people with autism need to be carried out.