Back again!

My son is 4 years old and starting school soon. I have had concerns on and off over the years and keep coming back to this checklist. I came back to it again today as an old issue has resurfaced.

About 2 and a half years ago my son starting blinking excessively. This went on for a few months and we took him to the doctors and he stopped after he heard us discussing it. The exact same thing has happened on maybe 3 or 4 occasions since. An old friend came to visit us this week and the minute they arrived he started blinking again. They have now left but we are left with blinking again. My son was stressed about one of the children visiting as he is quite loud and domineering. He also had a massive tantrum meltdown whilst they were here seemingly over "nothing". So the blinking and meltdown is why I came back to this list.

On the list, he ticks all of the boxes for hypersensitivity to sounds , plus a couple of the hypo sensitivity to sound items (is that possible??). We have regularly had to avoid loud, busy places in the past. He cannot be in public toilets with hand driers and is on constant edge of a public toilet flushing if he needs to use a cubicle. We have recently been able to go to a fairground but in the past have had to leave before we get too close due to the noise and he has a longstanding fear of merry go rounds! We have stood outside soft play centres many times trying to coax him in when he has spotted a merry go round or it's been too noisy. We were recently at a party where balloons were being popped which eventually pushed him over the edge. I say eventually as many of these issues are easing off and are not as intense as they have previously been. A number of balloons were popped and he was on edge but dealing with it before it got extreme.

Other issues on the list I ticked were in social and emotional. He was speech delayed for a time and did not babble as a baby or really try to talk much. This is now fine and he is a good talker but he is very socially awkward/shy/rude?? In the last year at preschool he has made friends and is now very confident with them (he previously would not talk to any children). He still won't talk to adults really but I was hopeful he might outgrow this as with children. He doesn't come across as shy as such, he just totally tunes out and ignores people. I would say definitely that other people have a hard time interpreting his cues, needs and emotions (even me!!). He often does avoid eye contact and has quite regular tantrums. The kind of massive meltdown tantrum which we had this week Id say we have maybe every 3 months or so, but smaller scale ones at least once a week.

As I say, I had been hopeful that he seemed to be outgrowing many of these issues but with the return of the eye blinking I'm back to thinking that maybe we need to look into this more? It's so hard to know what is "normal" behaviour for a young child or if we need to be getting some help. There are so many situations we have avoided in the past, I'm starting to panic after the last week about starting school should he be overwhelmed by noise/hand dryers/talking to grown ups.

Does anyone else's child have very similar issues? Do you think this sounds like SPD? I'm not really sure what or if I need to anything next? Thank you