He told me that when people hear a child has been diagnosed with ADHD, they often imagine this is like a diagnosis of, say, pneumonia--that a doctor has identified an underlying pathogen or illness, and is now going to prescribe something that can deal with that physical problem. But with ADHD, there are no physical tests a doctor can carry out. All she can do is talk to the child, and to people who know the child, and see if the kid's behavior matches a checklist drawn up by psychiatrists. That's it. Sami says: "ADHD is not a diagnosis. It's not a diagnosis. It's just a description of certain behaviors that sometimes occur together. That's all it is." All you are saying, when a child has been diagnosed with ADHD, is that a child is struggling to focus. "It doesn't tell you anything about the 'why' question." It's like being told that a child has a cough, listening to the cough, and then saying "yes, the child has a cough." If a doctor identifies a child with attention problems, that should be the first step in the process not the last.

— Stolen Focus by Johann Hari (Page 220)