Could my child be colourblind?

[iguesss]

My DD is 2.5 and is quite quick at learning things like numbers, songs, names etc. But colours is a struggle. She knows yellow, purple and blue but she struggles with differentiating between green/red/pink/orange. Could she be colourblind or is she just not nailed the names for the colours?

It's more unusual for girls to be colour blind, particularly if you don't have a history in your family as well as your partner being colour blind too. (Not always this simple, of course, and there is always the possibility, in a variety of ways, but not very common).

Can she sort/match colours correctly? If so, then it's more likely that she just hasn't got to the point of learning the names yet.

2.5 is a bit young to determine whether a child is colourblind. Time will tell

DS1 is terribly colourblind. We didn't know until he went for his Medical to join the army at 19. He'd been really quick to learn his colours, never had a problem all through his life, even the opticians didn't pick it up.

I'd not worry for now she's still very little.

We were convinced our son was red/green colourblind at about that age (he wasn't - he was just mispronouncing his own name in a way that sounded exactly like 'green' ) but when we asked about it at a routine ophthalmology check, they said he was too young to test and that they wouldn't expect full and accurate colour naming until at least 3.

I was convinced dd1 was colourblind.
At 2.5 she could read quite well, count and add up to 100, and even write a story (for which she won a competition). But she couldn't identify any colours.
Heck, she could read all the names of the colours, but not identify them.
I spent ages with her playing games of "pick up the blue block". Or even "pick up the same colour". Not any sign of identifying them.
She learnt them all in a week aged 3.5yo-including the complicated ones like turquoise and beige etc.

Colours were the last on that list that my Dd mastered too. not that she stood a chance when DH can't tell the difference between blue and green

DS2 is colourblind. Quite apparent when I was teaching him his colours and he obviously couldn’t differentiate between dark blue and brown and purple.

There are lots of online tests if you want to check it out when your a DD is older.

One of my really good friends can basically only see black and white and shades of yellow. When we go for a walk he is sometimes captivated by things which seem unremarkable to me but shine like beacons to him.

I didn't think girls could be, or so said my ex husband who was colourblind.

It would be pretty rare. It’s X linked, so ‘shows up’ more in boys (XY) than girls (XX), as they would need both a colourblind dad and carrier mum. Do you have colourblind relatives (uncles or cousins) on either side?

Both of my boys are colourblind and struggle with purples, oranges and lime greens, but seem to be able to recognise primary colours ok.

Really really too early to be worrying about this. Not unusual for children of 4 to still be learning colours.

Red:Green colourblindness is caused by a fault in a gene on the X chromosome. Since men only have 1 if they inherit the faulty gene from their mother they will be colourblind, 1 in 12 men are colourblind. However, women need to inherit a faulty copy from both their mother and father so only 1 in 200 women are colourblind.

I was told that unless dad and mum are both colourblind, it is virtually impossible for girls to be.

I thought the same, even took my DD (same age) to the optometrist...to be told "she isn't remotely colour blind, yoh just haven't taught her colours properly!" 😮🤭

Colours are an abstract concept and subjective which is why they are more difficult to understand. Basic numbers follow a pattern, you can use visual representation but colours don’t work like that. Most children don’t get a good grasp of colours until they’re at least 3, many don’t til over 4. I wouldn’t worry yet.

Unusual for girls but my DS2 is red-green colourblind and it was apparent age 2 when his understanding of colour was way behind his cognition in other areas. Confirmed by optician age 4. He is now fine naming
'pure' colours but fails all the hidden picture/number tests. Blows my mind that he must perceive the world so differently!

My Daughter is green blue colour blind, yes rare and definitely not hereditary. She didn't realise until
She was 17, made sense of her some of her unusual clothing choices...