Colour blind?

[HMQueenElizabeth]

Don't flame me, I know my DS is only young 2.2 years... But... He knows his numbers up to 20 (and can actually count how many objects are in front of him up to 10). He knows all his shapes. He is very advanced language wise compared to his friends. But he cannot at all seem to get his colours right. If you ask him what colour a block is, or the pen he's using to colour in, he gets it wrong virtually every time. In my heart I know he's young and learning but I can't stop this nagging thought that he may be colour blind (in some way, I know there are different levels). Is there anything I should do?

Are either of your parents or any of your grandparents colour blind? It's passed on through the maternal line, I believe.

It might just be his age. With DS2,I wondered if he was colour blind because he was exactly the same at that age - advanced in many things like counting and vocabulary and so on (partly because he had an older sibling I think). But he would get colours wrong nearly all the time.

Gradually it stopped (for a while, I decided he was doing it for a laugh, as I could definitely see a little smile on his face sometimes).

He's now 2.11 and never gets colours wrong. Also, I think colour blindness is mixing up particular pairs of colours (like red/green), not a blanket thing of not recognising any colours.

Actually, he IS colour-blind - to the extent that all children of his age are. I read some developmental psychology research papers a while back (accurate referencing here, NOT!) which show the ability to distinguish colours develops with age - e.g. to young children there is no difference between yellow and green.

Test your DS with pairs of coloured pencils or felt tips. It's fascinating to see what they can distinguish and then to see how that's changed just a few weeks later.

My DD is now 2.11 and gets most colours right (even down to "turquoise with light yellow stripes"/beige/peach etc). However, she still can't tell black and brown apart - they're both black.

Also don't exclude toddler contrariness - he's right at the stage where he's defining things by what they aren't. DD would start to say the right colour then catch herself and announce a different colour very firmly with a big grin on her face.

We've taken DD to the hospital opthalmologist since birth (other issues - ptosis) and I was told then that though they were checking colour blindness it wasn't conclusive till past toddler stage. Worth keeping an eye on(!) but it sounds normal so far.

really interesting wingding! we definitely had that contrariness too!

Okay that's very interesting and very reassuring.

None of my family (that I know of) are colourblind. And I didn't realise that their colour viewing changes as they age and develop.
So thank you.

I just found it all so strange because he is very capable with everything except colours, and I started to worry.

Dd1 didn't know her colours until she was gone 3yo. I thought she was colourblind as she knew her alphabet before 2yo and was reading fairly fluently by 3yo, counted up over 100... I thought if a child knew these things they'd know colours surely. I spent ages trying to teach her to no joy. Then she suddenly knew them. And in a week went from apparently not knowing any, to even knowing ones like beige and turquoise.

Dd2 otoh knew red and blue at about 15 months and learnt each colour separately iyswim. She was learning things like beige and turquoise at about the same age as dd1. I never tried to teach her them.

Dd1 was/is much more interested in numbers and letters, whereas dd2 is more interested in something being "pretty" or what colour they are. It does depend on what they are interested in.

My dd is 2.10 and can't tell you any colours at all! But she has over 20 Thomas tank trains all look identical except for colours and if I ask her to get me James, Percy etc she will get the right one so she obviously distinguishes them by their colours but just doesn't know the names of the colours. They all get their in the end

It may be that numbers are easier for him than colours, but this doesnt mean he wont learn colours too. Different brain activity is needed for numbers than colours I guess, but colour blindness is more commen in boys than girls so maybe you could try to test his perception of colour to check whether he really cant distinguish between them. Not knowing the names of colours doesn't mean he cant tell the diffrence. There is a test called The Ishihara test whihc uses diffrent coloured dots forming a pattern or picture than you can only see if you can tell the difference between the colours. Distinguishing red from green is the most common form of colour blindness but this also affects orange, brown and red distinctions too - they can appear to all be the same hue as each other (red-ish). Maybe you could line up some diffrent coloured objects and ask him if they are the same colour or diffrent colour rather than asking him what colours they are?

It would be very severe colour blindness not to be able to distinguish between bright primary colours. Strange as it may seem, DS could identify all primary colours, green, black and white before he was two but he is colour blind. So after that, all pastel shades were pink and all more muted colours were brown and to this day he is unable to distinguish between shades of the same colour. OP, it is more likely that your DS is just young but, even if he is colour blind, it is not something to worry about - unless he wants to become a pilot.

I was concerned about this with DD for a while when she was around 18mth-2.5yrs, I guess. She consistently mixed up blue and yellow but she is fine now.

It's very interesting that their eyes are still developing - I think I had bumped into that information when I was worried about DD before.

DD (4.3) had her first eye test today and the optician checked for colour blindness. Don't know how the test would work for a younger child but you could ask at your local optician to see if they could help.

I think I'll stop worrying about it for now. Hopefully he just hasn't mastered colours yet. Thank you for all your nice replies (I was worried I'd be flamed for saying DS is advanced and can do numbers and blah blah blah...). But you've all been great!

My husband is colourblind and also my father and his brother, so we have the right background and indeed it seems like DS2 (now 3.5yo) is likely colourblind. We will test him hopefully before he goes to kindergarten but we first noticed that he was confusing colours that are close on the spectrum - green and gold/beige are a problem, he also thinks that pink and light blue are the same. It was a right conundrum when he would ask for a yellow pencil (at around 2-3yo) and when you gave him one he would say "NO! I want the YELLOW crayon!!! (oh dear...what do I give him now?).

Something for other posters to consider is that colourblindness affects far more males than females, so generally it would be way down the list of your worries (I just googled and it's only 0.5% of women who are colourblind).
But I second CecilyP in that it is rare for colourblind people to fail to distinguish the primary colours. Get him tested if you are concerned but it may be a bit early yet. good luck!

About one in 12 men have a colour deficiency, and one in 200 women.

FWIW DS used to get red and green muddled up and I was sure he'd be red-green colour blind for a while. However he's recently stopped muddling them up (I forget how long ago but he's 3.5 now).

This is an excellent radio show / podcast about colours, colour blindness and perception of colour by the brilliantly talented "Radiolab"

It won't let you know if your son is colour blind, but it will give you an appreciation of how colour perception works which you might find reassuring.

In fact if any of you have a spare hour, I can't recommend it highly enough!
(It's radio so you can listen while you're doing stuff, of course!)

Radio Lab - Colors