As a preschooler, Amanda Sprague would cling to her mum or dad around new
people, slept with the bedroom door wide open and the hall light on, and was skittish
about bugs. To her parents this didn't seem all that unusual for her age. But when she
started school, Amanda's worries multiplied and intensified, says Laurie, her mother.
She would cower in bed, paralyzed with fear during a thunderstrom. When she spotted
two ladybugs on the ceiling, she ran screaming from her bedroom and refused to go to
sleep.