how do you tell if they are colour blind!?

[beckoes]

DD is only 26 months, she is really good at her alphabet and numbers and learns stuff really quickly, i have been trying to teach her colours since before we even thought about learning letters but she really doesnt know her colours very well. she knows black, white, grey, yellow and pink, but cant pick the other ones out. Are colours quite hard to learn and something that will just come in its own time or do you think its possible she is colour blind to some colours???

[Liz]

My ds is colour blind. They have dot pattern things they test with. He couldn't see the numbers in most of them.

It's rare for a girl to be colour blind. It's usually carried by the girls but the boys get it. My bro is colour blind so I'm carrying the gene. Ds gets his coloured pencils and things right tho. It's when there's different shades that he starts getting it wrong. Like a really really dark green he can't tell what it is.

We found out for sure at his 4yo screen and his referred eye test.

[butterfly_warrior]

Colour blindness is actually a recessive gene carried on the X chromosome. The only way your daughter could be colour blind is if she got the gene for it from you and your DH. But this would mean (as men only have one X chromosome) that your husband would also be colour blind. If he's not, then she's just finding colours a bit tricky.

BW

[Tinks]

26 mths is quite young to diagnose colour blindness. It could be that she probaby doesn't remember the names of the colours and calls them any name that comes to her head. Girls are unlikely to be colour blind, they carry the gene and pass it on to their sons who are affected by it but can't pass it on.

Is she getting particular colours like red, green, yellow or brown mixed up? These are the ones that usually get mixed up by colour blind people.

My brother is colour blind, he had a lot of trouble with colours as a child but it was never thought that he could be colour blind. It wasn't until he was at school that a teacher picked it up. Because my brother is CB I coudl be a carrier so I had my Ds was tested when he was in kinder and he wasn't colour blind.

You could take her to an optometrist for testing but she is quite young and probably wouldn't understand the test. She is only young and will probably pick the colours up in time, if she doesn't definitely look further into it.

[Olive]

learning colours is a 3 year old task! she'll get there.... soon!

[Ginger]

liz- can i ask you, did they test for this at the 4 year old mchn check?

[thepixie]

Beth can get all the main colours but she usually calls red "colour" maybe that was the first one we said or something!
Grace is very smart, I am sure she will get them all right soon, she has probably just been focusing on learning other things.

[HotI]

Colour blindness is actually a recessive gene carried on the X chromosome. The only way your daughter could be colour blind is if she got the gene for it from you and your DH. But this would mean (as men only have one X chromosome) that your husband would also be colour blind. If he's not, then she's just finding colours a bit tricky.

BW

Rarely girls can inherit only one affected X chrom and still present with colourblindness. As women have 2 x chromosomes, one of them is randomly inactivated in each cell. If the non-affected chrom was turned off in all the eye cells (or whichever cellls dictate colour blindness) then a girl child could still be colour blind.

[Liz]

Ginger - when I took DS for his 4yo needles the nurse at the GP did her own kind of 4yo check, and I think she only got the colourblind chart things out cos I mentioned it. We were being referred for his vision to an opthamologist anyway, and when I told them, she did the similar charts with him and he's well & truly colourblind LOL. Think he could only see numbers in 1 of them!

We recently did the MCHN 4yo check which was a bit different, but she didn't check his vision cos I told her we'd already seen the specialist etc. So I don't know if they have the colourblind tests there or not. They're pretty easy to find, so you can do it yourself.. here's the tests: Are You Color Blind? (thanks google! haha)

[MistyFying]

When my son was 2 he went through a stage where everything, to him, was "Yellow". That phase passed and he went on to learn all his colours in the fullness of time

[Traveller]

My son is 6 and still has not been tested for colour blindness, despite my brother being colour blind. The optician said he will do it at his next eye check up, but it's easier to do when children are very confident with their letters and numbers as these are what the colour dot test will reveal if they are CB.

[Laranna]

When my son was 2 he went through a stage where everything, to him, was "Yellow". That phase passed and he went on to learn all his colours in the fullness of time

My DS is doing exactly this at the moment. Everything is yellow! Even if I ask him "what colour is this blue plate?" he will still answer with "yellow" lol

[Daytona's Mummy]

My DS is colour blind too... (red/green CB) as everyone else has said, It's very very rare for girls to have it but unfortunately it's not impossible.... all of my uncles are CB yet My DS is the only one in my family with it & I'm 1 of 6 girls.... His wasn't picked up until he was at school & when the black board came out (it was actually green) he couldn't see any thing written on it unless it was written with white chalk, red was completely impossible to see. Now that he is older, he explains it like red he see's as black (or a shade of) & green to him is brown. The op said though that Jacobs is quite severe in that red & green doesn't have to be together for him to have trouble seeing it, he can't see the colours at all even on their own. It makes me wonder if when he looks outside & everything is so alive, lush & green, It would all still look dead to him
From memory ( many years ago) i think there are different types like red/green... blue/yellow. It doesn't help his dyslexia either... they usually use the rose coloured glasses but for DS, that obviously doesn't work on him!
GL with your DD, I'm sure she is just fine & will learn the other colours in her own time, they also used shapes in the cards my son was tested on & someone colour blind would see a different shape then someone who's fine IYKWIM. So take her off to the optomitrist (sp?) & get a test done... It's bulk billed anyway, so it's easy to just pop in on your way past anyway... it wont hurt to ask!
GL!.... FWIW, I still have to pick out all the red, green, black & brown pencils or have the name of the colour written on them, yet he is fantastic at art which I have heard is VERY commen, for CB people to be brilliant artests! (wasn't one of those famous painters actually colour blind come to think of it?) either way, if she is, It's no big deal, at least you won't have to worry about her wanting to be an electrician!! She will still be able to live a VERY normal life!

[beckoes]

really interesting!!! i had no idea about any of that stuff! thanks ladies! My uncle is colour blind but i think only red and green. DD seems to have trouble with red green and blue which i why i was a bit suss! So if its a male thing and my uncle has it, my mum could be a carrier and so could i so if i have a boy??? confused now!! thanks again all!

[Lisa]

My 16yr old DS was diagnosed with colour deficiency when he was 4. He is unable to see certain shades of green and is missing most of the green cones in his eyes.
It is really interesting as he sees the new model green VW beetles as being orange, even though they're clearly green to those of us without colour deficiency.

He has adjusted over the years to this and I have noticed as he has somewhat improved with certain colours. You can google the colour tests to do at home which can give an indication. I think 2 is too young to test properly though.

[*Efjay*]

My 8 yr old is also colour blind. We never even thought that he might be. It was at eye check up as he was having trouble reading at school & made some weird comments about it being easier to read the books in kindy because the words where bigger that we took him to have his eyes checked. The guy doing it asked me if I thought he was colour blind as he didn't get any of the tests cards right when he did them. But said it may just be that he didn't understand the test. But we did it at home (google colour blind & you can find charts that they use) & he couldn't see any of them. We did take him for a 2nd opinion & got the same results. Its funny, he can see colours, just not certain shades as someone else described. But he has never been interested in crafts & his paintings have always been kinda "slop a bit of paint on to keep them happy" So it makes sense now LOL.

eta- Lisa- It is funny hey, I asked Evan to get my green jumper off my bed & cme back saying it wasn't there, even though I knew it was & figured he was just being lazy. Anyway he came storming out telling me only the blue one was there! Then I remembered, it wouldn't look green to him lol.