True ADHD is not from lack of discipline. Many people think this and it is an ignorant belief. Seedjar, I am not saying you stated this. I am assuming that you are stating that many kids are incorrectly diaganosed as having ADHD when it is a product of poor parenting and lack of guidance and discipline causing inappriopriate behavior. A child psychologist can diffentiate between the two. The problem is that many kids are diagnosed by their family doctor, whose first treatment is to throw drugs at the kids because that is what the parents want. The first step should be counseling and therapy to help develope techniques for the child to control their behavior without meds and diet & lifestyle changes, but that requires more effort.
I definitely see where you're coming from, but I wonder how many doctors truly see (or even believe in) ADD/ADHD as a pathology, and not just a behavioral syndrome. Although I think it's neither realistic nor pragmatic, I get the impression from most of what I've seen on the topic that it's the latter. The actual cause is irrelevant if the medical community is working on false premises. Today a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is a self-fulfilling prophecy; doctors, parents and teachers will retroactively project the disease onto children at the mere suggestion, regardless of whether or not there's any hard evidence to support it.
What I little I know about the neurological characteristics of ADHD is that it diagnostically resembles several other nebulous disorders/syndromes where brain activity shows an atypical distribution. Given what little we know about brain function, the statistical correlations of symptoms to observed abnormalities don't indicate any pathologies specific enough to be conclusively corrected by either medication
or behavioral therapy. There are still major arguments, both practical and theoretical, as to whether or not the abnormalities are the result of experiences, genetic predisposition, subtle environmental factors or some combination. I think the issue is that the disease is characterized by vague sociological symptoms, while doctors treat it as though it were entirely determined by some gross physiological deficit, and the two don't always match up. Of course stimulants relieve the appearance of symptoms; the symptoms are all defined in terms of things like accomplishment and ability to concentrate for long periods of time. But those aren't basic features of personal health - they arise as a combination of many internal processes and are determined in part by external circumstances.
Even if there is some definite chemical cause that can be easily and safely treated, I think it's a bad idea on principle. Brain chemistry is one of the few things that we can learn to willfully influence within our bodies. To provide a crutch in the form of drugs deprives a person of learning to overcome a significant personal difficulty. I applaud you for helping your daughter along the harder path - best luck.
Thread derailment! I second chezilla's suggestion towards x. 'Miranda' - I was actually thinking that myself.
~Joe