Colour blindness - how would you know and at what age would you be concerned?

[ceebeegeebies]

DS2 is 2.4 and can confidently recognise pink, purple, orange, blue, yellow, black and white but cannot seem to recognise green or red - when you ask him what colour it is, he just looks confused and often says blue.

I know that red and green are the colours that are confused when someone is colour blind but not sure what they see instead (is it blue?) and if 2.4 is too young to be concerned about this?

Bump

Dh is colour blind.
Not sure when he was diagnosed but they knew from bit older than that I think.
He mixes up colours of the same tone. Reds green, grey pink, blue purple. Red green brown orange and especially tricky.

It's not held him back in any way except he wasn't allowed to join the RAF. He does need people to change colours on charts at work but that's it really.

DS may well be colour blind too but at almost 2 it's too early to tell and there's nothing you can do so why worry.
HTH :)

Thanks soppy I am not worried - if he is colour blind then he is and he will cope with it (just hope he doesn't want to join the RAF ).

After doing a bit of googling, it would appear that opticians won't even test for it until at least 5+ as they aren't confident that children know and can name the colours by then!!

Usually the child needs to know numbers as well as colours, as most of the test involving identifying a number in a field of coloured dots. My son was 'officially' diagnosed at 6, although we were pretty sure before then.

I've got 2 colourblind boys, and they were 6 when the optician noticed. :)

My son is similar to yours ceegeebeebies, and i have wondered about colour blindness.He can recognise most colours but confuses red and green. He has a game where you sort red beads on to the red stick,green beads onto the green stick etc and he gets it right every time, so i am not that worried. he does it too fluently and too often for it to be fluke.

My old boss was colourblind. He wanted to be an electrician, but couldn't. So he became a geologist instead and we spent ages drawing patterns on geological maps because he could not make out the colours.

My son used to sometimes confuse red and green, and also confused purple and blue. But as he grew older he got much better at it. So good, in fact, I stopped being concerned that he might be colour blind. But alas, optician confirmed at aged 5 that he was 80% red/green colour blind.

To be honest, it doesn't make any difference to him. Quite relieved that no career in bomb disposal awaits him..

Your optician should be able to check with special pictures and is able to refer him to a specialist for further assessment.

You would be doing him a favour by getting his difficulties identified clearly before he starts school. Lots of the environment and processes in a reception classroom can be colour-coded and he'd be at a severe disadvantage if the teacher was unaware. This could apply to pre-schools or nurseries too.

Most children become very adept at using tone to discriminate between colours so don't be fooled into thinking you were wrong just because he starts being able to identify some reds or greens, particularly in familiar objects.

My dd was a similar age to your ds when we 1st thought she was colour blind. She couldn't seperate green and blues. She is now nearly 5 and still can't and she's confident on all other colours so I'm pretty sure she's colour blind. Its not stopped her so far.

I'm colour blind (actually very unusual in a girl) and was diagnosed when was about 5ish. The normal red/green etc etc - and as for what colour I see instead, it's not blue - just that I can't differentiate the colours! Has never held me back in anyway .. so no reason to be worried at any stage!

I'm colour blind...I always knew I had problems with colours but wasn't properly diagnosed until I was about 18. I have problems with nearly every colour and its even worse when you get different shades! There are colours that I look at and just dont know what they are. Its never held me back really though I do get stick for not matching outfits sometimes
Also my 2 dds live in blue denim and pink as these are the only colours I am 100% sure of, unless I buy whole matching outfits- though this will soon be a problem as my eldest is in 3-4 now so a bit old for that......According to my optician I am the first colourblind woman she has ever seen in her career...26 years!

I asked this the other day. DD2 is under the hosptial for her eyes and due an appointment in few weeks so am planning to ask there. Will report back if i get anywhere.