Pascha – agree with you 95%. Thek other five percent – yes, maybe there are a small percentage of people with actual neurological problems with attention, and they don’t grow out of it.
BUT – a lot of kids with the diagnosis don’t have it – they just, as you said, can’t sit still for 12 hours a day. I sure couldn’t. I ended up studying standing up with my book on top of a low bookcase. It worked. I even wrote computer programs on top of that bookcase :-). I now have a specially constructed shtender which is even better. And – a friend of mine who was doing research on the neurology of ADD screened me with an EEG (goopy electrodes and all). Guess what – no ADD. Just need lots of exercise.
But I’m an adult. What about the kid who really needs exercise and gets stuck at a desk with half an hour recess a day? No wonder he/she drives the teacher crazy. And eventually gets expelled and goes OTD.
I think sometimes that our yeshiva system is equivalent to a factory for the production of emotional and social problems (except for the lucky 10% who fit the “mold”).