Colour-blindness?

[2littleprincesses]

My 2y4mo DD is really good with her colours. She has known colours for a while, but sometimes when she sees RED she says GREEN and vice versa. Sometimes she gets it right.

Can you tell whether a child is colourblind at her age or is it just her getting confused?

-2littleprincesses

[Chickadee]

You'd probably need to get her checked at an optometrist for diagnosis, not sure on that. But colour blindness is much more common in boys than girls, so I'd suspect she's just getting them confused. Plus she make like the reaction she gets from you when she says the wrong one, maybe it's become a game?

[Chickadee]

It seems that if she knows her numbers you can get her tested. The following is from the Toronto Children's Hospital info page on Colour Blindness (http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/ofhc/Article.asp?articleID=1869) which has more information.


How is it diagnosed?
An eye doctor can do a very simple test for colour blindness. Your child can look at a special test book that has a pattern of small coloured circles. Some of the circles on the page are a different colour and form a number. A colour blind child will not be able to see the number because it will appear as the same colour as the other circles on the page. The test book has about a dozen of these patterns in it to make sure of the diagnosis and to judge the severity of the colour blindness. This test is usually easy enough that it is possible to get good results even with young children.

[2littleprincesses]

Ah, I've seen those tests before. She doesn't yet know numbers very well, just learning, so I guess that would be a bit tricky. Surely there'd be tests for children unable to tell numbers?

[SixtiesChild]

My dad was colourblind and had trouble distinguishing green and red.
As far as I know it is hereditary and is passed along through the maternal side to males. (But am not 100% certain of this.)
Have you considered asking your parents if they or the grandparents had any colour blindness?

[kyeaj]

This is a really interesting post to me as my other half is "really" color-blind...

This amazes me as was a powder-coater (or spray painter) who worked with colors every day. He advises me that it never made a difference to him as all the colors were coded by numbers; hence the reason he never made mistakes. LOL! We have debates all the time over "what color that car was" and he always covers his back by saying things like, "it was browny red", etc. Pretty clever of him I think - hahaha...

His uncles are color-blind also and this post has made me wonder if my ds will be, seeing as it was mentioned that it is hereditary. I'd be interested if anyone has any other information on this.

[Nicki]

Hi 2littleprincesses

Colourblindness is hereditary - much more common in boys than girls. If you are a carrier for the colourblindness gene and your partner is colourblind, your children (girls and boys) have a one in two chance of being colourblind.

If you are a carrier and your partner is not colourblind, then your girls can't be colourblind, but have a 1 in two chance of being carriers. Your boys still have a one in two chance of being colourblind.

In short, if your partner is not colourblind, your DD can't be colourblind, whether it runs in your family or not. At her age, she may be confusing the colour labels or having a larf!

Hope this helps

Nicki

DD 7
DD 4.5
#3 first week of April

[2littleprincesses]

Thank you for all of that info. I just read your replies to DH who reminded me that his father is colour-blind. He has trouble with red, green and blue - he works as an electrician and uses those different coloured cables in his work.

I don't think it's a game to her, as when she's purposely saying something incorrectly she gets the giggles badly, but with this she says "green" and I say "it's red" and she just corrects herself and says "red" in reply.

She did once play a game w my nana who asked her what colour some coloured cups were. She answered that they were all blue in turn, then when asked what colour the blue one was she'd laugh and answer "purple". But that was so obviously a game to her.

Probably rambling a bit there, sorry.

I think I'll phone the optometrist tomorrow and see what he can tell me and find out where I can have her tested if possible.

again, thanks for all your info.