Is anyone else dealing with a colour-blind toddler?

[openjarawayfromface]

(I'm a regular, but have name-changed as this is a bit unusual and I don't want to "out" myself )

We are almost certain that DD is colour blind - there is a family history and she always calls red "green" despite being really sound on all her other colours/numbers/animals etc. This is fine - after all we know that other people in the family have coped just fine with being colour blind. The only problem that we have is that we don't know what to do when DD gets the colour "wrong". She's obviously learned the colour green first, and as far as she's concerned that's the name for both green and red as they're the same colour for her. We tell her that things like fire engines and tomatoes are red, because she will need that knowledge as she grows up. Should we tell her about other things too though? If she asks for the green pencil then I tend to let it slide and just give her the red pencil. She has started getting very reluctant to discuss colours when the answer is green or red, as she gets it wrong so often. My Dad seems to be able to distinguish between red and green quite often though due to very subtle differences, and if we can teach her that, then obviously we'd like to.

Is anyone else dealing with this, and what do you do? Is there any official advice about dealing with a colour blind child.

I don't know the answer to this I am afraid but my optician said that my ds is 99% likely to be colour blind. He struggled with colours for a long time but seems to have the grasp of most of them now although some days are very hit and miss. I think I would just keep correcting (gentley) and she will learn that if grass is meant to green then that shade can equate to other things in other aspects of life. It may take time but she will probably assimilate it without consciously learning.

Thank you for the reply. Poor DD just gets so frustrated with the whole thing. She picks up everything else so quickly, and I can understand why she finds it confusing that Mummy and Daddy use two completely different names for the same thing.

How old is she ? Could just be one of those things that shes refusing to say.

R/G colourblindness is very unusual in girls - you would have to be a carrier and her father would have to be R/G colourblind to have the normal type.

My BIL is almost totally colourblind, and what they did was just to make a point of saying the colour of everything, and never expecting him to say a colour. Mostly he gets it right now by using subtle cues.

Its really easy to test for though - an optician will be able to do an initial test

That's why I name-changed. With only 0.2% of women having R/G colourblindness I thought that it would have been a bit of a give-away. In DD's case, she has a 50:50 chance.
DD is almost 2, and doesn't usually refuse to say things. We have the opposite problem normally! It wasn't such a big deal for us until she became upset when we asked her what colour a green bird was this weekend. I know that she could have been upset for other reasons, but it flagged up the possibility for us that we could be giving her a bit of a complex about the whole thing.
It's a good idea not to expect her to tell us colours though, and to just keep up telling her so that she can pick up on the subtle clues.

No experience, but she is very young, My son who I don't suspect has any colour regognition problems is nearly a year older than your DD and gets his colours wrong loads.

Please don't worry about it , an optician can teat at a later point, but just go with the flow for now correcting with the correct word but not getting to het up about it

my son is 2 and useless at colours. I'm not worried yet - but his first guess for any colour is green.

Ah ha ! yes, a bit identifiable !

My DS is a non stop talker, but when we were at the orthoptists the other week he did his right eye tests, and then refused to name anything with his left... And of course, which eye do I have a complex about sight in ?

Have you tried colour matching cards ? Its fun, and might flag up if there really was a problem better than using words.

DD is quite a talker (a late walker and useless at climbing, but that's another thread ). She uses all the other colours with no problem, including peach and silver, so it's not a general thing where she just isn't interested in colours yet. She understands the concept of "snap", so that could be a good way of testing her without having to use words though.

I'd love to have her tested, as I reckon that it'll be easier to deal with if we know early. Having said that, I can understand that toddlers aren't necessarily the most co-operative patients. And the men in the family weren't identified as colour blind until quite late on in life (one family friend didn't realise until he was an adult!) and they don't seem to have suffered too badly.

Is your partner colour blind? It is almost impossible for a girl to be colour blind unless her father is too (the only exception being a spontaneous mutation which is very unlikely). Just asking because if her dad isn't colour blind then you have nothing to worry about.

If she is colour blind then (unlike a man who is colourblind who has one faulty X chromosome) she will have two faulty X chromosomes - I wonder if that would make her colourblindness a bit different from your father's and husband's?

There are tests online for colour blindness where you have to spot numbers/shapes in red and green dots so if you google "colour blindness test" I expect you will find a few and could try them on her just to get some idea.

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