Late-onset SPD?

by Jennifer Banse
(Clarksville, TN, USA)

I am beginning to suspect that my 5-year-old might have mild SPD (I say mild because she exhibits very few characteristics, but the few she has are problematic). As an infant/toddler, she exhibited none of the traits listed for that age range. Then shortly before turning 3 she developed her "foot fetish", a compulsion to press the bottoms of her feet very hard against the wall while sitting/lying down (or against the legs of the person next to her on the couch. But that phase lasted less than a year.

Not long after that (age 3.5) her eating habits became more finicky. Her "tolerable" food repertoire has now shrunk to the point that the poor nutrition is evident in the condition of her hair. Around the same time as the picky eating, she also developed a noise aversion that matches items on the checklist. But the odd thing is, she makes a lot of unpleasant loud noise herself while playing. It is only certain noise from other sources that bothers her. She can go to movies, but she wears an ear-protection headset that daddy bought at a gun shop. So my question is, can SPD show up rather suddenly after 2-3 symptom-free years?

Most of the personal stories I've read are from people who knew something wasn't right during their child's infancy or toddler years. My child had no indications until the short-lived "foot fetish" at age 3.