When parents ask me about ADHD and meds, I have actually taken to collecting, scoring, and interpreting checklists that MDs will be most likely to recognize (but are still valid!), and sending them to the parents as a packet to take to the doctor, just to make sure that there is as complete a set of observational data as possible, from multiple teachers and staff, and the parents. This after too many stories from parents along the lines of, "I asked my pediatrician if my child might have ADD/ADHD, so they wrote a prescription for Ritalin (or Adderall...) and said to try it and see if it made a difference."
