My child is two and a half and I am starting to worry that she is not recognising different colours.
I wasn't initially worried but at a baby class recently, the teacher got all the toddlers to hold a parachutue type thing for one of the games. She sang a little song about different colours and went around the circle asking the childrern to shout out what colour they were holding (the parachute had blocks of differerent coloured material). ALL the other children knew their colours except for my child who is one of the older children in the group.
For the past number of months, whenever we look at something, I say the colour and ask her to say it after me and she repeatedly says 'white' for every colour. I don't make a big deal about it and recently she has started to recognise blue and pink and orange but for every other colour she says white. DH thinks she may be colour blind.
I'm unsure if we are comparing her unfavourably to her older sibling who had an extensive vocabulary at her age. Her sibling memorises things and rarely asks to repeat something so the difference with our younger child may be more noticeable.
I googled before posting and read that children should be able to say one colour by the time they are thirty six months old but that seems very old to me especially given that most of the two year olds in the baby class seem to know all their colours.
Reading over this, I sound like a pushy mum when in reality I'm not at all. Her speech appears to be delayed but again, maybe I'm comparing her to her sibling. I feel too that I had a lot of one to one time with my older child and I definitely don't get to spend that time with my younger child. She says 'wa wa' for water and quite short sentences - usually three words - and can be difficult to understand. Maybe this has been highlighted as we had guests staying this weekend who really didn't' understand anything she was saying. I am generally able to understand her or at least have a stab at guessing what she wants. Another thing is she doesn't speak very much, it is usually just when she wants something. She doesn't just try to 'chat' like my older child did at her age. Maybe the reason for this is because she can't say the words. She seems to understand everything we say and will follow instructions (if she feels like it). She chats to her older sibling but not too her Dad or me. She also falls regularly and doesn't seem co-ordinated but this is improving. I asked the HV about the falling but she didn't seem unduly concerned. Maybe I should ask about the talking too? She is quite strong willed and independent little girl and has a great sense of fun.
Should I be concerned? Is there something I can do to help?
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Behaviour/development
Recognising colours?
hippiedays · 13/06/2016 02:26
I think it is very normal to have a 'default' word like your DD saying 'white'. My DS is just starting to understand colour and he will repeat me if I use a colour word ('red bus' etc) but if I ask him what colour something is he will generally tell me it is green! 
He did exactly the same when learning about other words. All forms of transport were 'car' at first (including trains etc) but he now knows bus, truck, train, tram, tractor and so on. If he's not certain about an animal he usually calls it 'cat'.
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