Leo didn’t speak much. In his file, teachers had written “selective mutism.” His parents wrote “he’s in there, just waiting.” Lena wrote nothing yet. She believed the manual’s first commandment: Observe without interpreting.
She turned to the “Construction Task.” Show the child how to stack blocks in a specific pattern. Note if they imitate. Leo stacked them into a wobbly tower, then knocked it down. When Lena stacked hers, he didn’t copy. Instead, he placed a block on her knee and whispered, “For the queen.” Ados 2 Manual
She closed the manual. Then she opened her report template. Leo didn’t speak much
At 9 a.m., Leo arrived. He wore a cape. A real one, red satin, tied at the neck. His mother mouthed “He insisted.” Lena nodded. The manual didn’t forbid capes. She turned to the “Construction Task
She wrote: Leo meets ADOS-2 criteria for autism spectrum disorder in the domain of social communication. However, his imaginative play and capacity for metaphor suggest a rich inner world. Recommendation: support social navigation without extinguishing his narrative gifts.
She should have recorded “absent imitation.” But she wrote in her margin: Spontaneous offering. Idiosyncratic but intentional.
The manual had no code for that.
