‘It’s gonna work’: Spontaneous activity and knowledge management by a child with asperger’s syndrome

Abstract

The activity under consideration in this paper consists of two boys (siblings aged 8 and 9 years old) jointly involved in the task of assembling a toy machine gun. The eldest boy has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The activity of assembling the toy gun will be complete once the boys have taken the pieces out of the box, read the instructions, put batteries into battery holders, assembled and installed the bullet holder, and finally ensured that the gun fires. Although there are diagrammatic instructions of how the gun should be constructed, the activity and the resulting interaction are spontaneous. The aim of this paper is to examine how the siblings assert, contest and defend their understanding of ‘who knows what’ when interacting with each other and the artifacts and objects within their vicinity.