A little girl in first grade at Chautauqua wasn’t learning to read and write. Her teacher suggested she be evaluated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She was diagnosed with ADHD. By then, the girl was in summer school.

She started taking ADHD medication on a weekend. Her parents didn’t tell the summer school about her diagnosis or the start of medication. Monday evening the parents got a voice mail from their daughter’s teacher.

“I don’t know what happened,” the teacher said, “but today your daughter started reading and writing.”

Some people say ADHD is overdiagnosed due to our culture’s discomfort with kids who have high energy. This perception causes more pain to children and their families. Parents may wait years to have a child evaluated, thinking the behavior is a phase that will pass. Teachers sometimes think a child is deliberately misbehaving.

Those of us with adopted children often wonder why it seems many adoptees have ADHD or other neurologic disorders. Chemical exposure is now known to be a major factor.

Freddie Gray, who died in a Baltimore police van last April, had brain damage from lead poisoning. He was poisoned by lead-based paint in his childhood home. France banned lead-based paint in 1909. It wasn’t banned here until 1978. Houses built before World War II are very likely to have lead paint, and those built before 1978 may have it.

In 1971, a child was considered “poisoned” if the level of lead in his or her blood was above 40 micrograms per deciliter. Recently, the “level of concern” dropped to 5 micrograms per deciliter. Dr. Bruce Lanphear at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has shown that even lower lead levels are associated with reduced IQ, ADHD and other neurologic disorders. A few days ago researchers at the University of Oregon announced that a particular gene mutation results in children developing ADHD when they have a low level of lead in their blood.

Paint companies claimed their products were safe, just like tobacco companies. In our country, decades pass before there is enough evidence and political will for regulators to act. In this country, 85,000 chemicals are registered for use, and only 200 of them must be tested for safety. Other countries employ the “precautionary principle. Chemicals that are suspect are restricted until proven safe.

We can apply the precautionary principle to choosing a type of artificial turf for our high school. “Crumb rubber” from used tires has been used ever since tire companies realized they could turn garbage into a profitable product. A women’s soccer coach at the University of Washington raised the alarm after discovering that nearly 100 young soccer goalies have developed leukemia and other cancers. Studies on crumb rubber have been inconclusive due to small sample size and narrow focus, but lead has been identified at very high levels in some situations. Lanphear has called for a moratorium on installation of crumb rubber fields, and bills are currently before our state legislature to require testing of crumb rubber and tracking of health issues.

Rather than assume crumb rubber is safe until proven harmful, our school board used cost estimates for a material made from recycled sneakers that does not contain high levels of lead. Another option would be to use a material made from coconut husks and cork.

When we bought land on Vashon 25 years ago, we collected soil samples and had them analyzed for lead and arsenic due to the ASARCO smelter. The results sounded bad to me, but staff at the King County Public Health Department assured us it would not be a problem if we washed our hands and any vegetables we grew and took our shoes off in the house. Now I wonder — did our children ingest enough lead to hurt them?

If you are pregnant, it is recommended that you be tested for lead. If you have a young child and are concerned about their development or behavior, I suggest, as one parent to another, that you get your child tested for lead. Under the Affordable Care Act, your insurance company, including Medicare, typically pays for it.

As for that little girl, she continued struggling in school even with medication. We must educate parents and our community that ADHD is real.