think ds may be colour blind....

[fryalot]

He doesn't seem to see any difference between green and red.

When do they test for colour blindness?
Is it debilitating in any way?
Am I being stupid and paranoid?

Anyone got any experience of this?

How old is he?

Have no experiance but my boss is colour blind and he owns a company that turns over £11m per year. So it's not stopped him

Go to your GP/Heatl visitor?

The optition can quite easlily test for colour blindness. It might help if can recognise numbers, though as the cards I've seen usually have numbers on, but they might have some for younger children, with cars on for example.

kittylette, he's only 21 months.

But he has learnt his colours and is very proud of himself when he holds up a green brick, and a red brick and tells me there are two green ones (or red)

now, why didn't I think of an optician! durr

There's nothing you can do about colour blindness, so rushing him of to the optitions won't help him. Children's eye tests are free, though, so it won't hurt to have him tested.

Oh no, my ds mixed up colours at that age I wouldn't worry at this age.

well, dd1 has an appointment next week, so I may ask if they can have a quick look.

Not debilitating, good, nothing I can do, good. Will stop worrying then

thanks very much, everyone.

But if you ask him ot find a red brick can he, amongst several green? Try that and see what he does.

My ds1 is colour blind, we didn't pick it up until he was about 6 or 7. Yes it's the distinguishing between the two colours when they're close together which is difficult I think. Can't say it comes up much - except when looking for red easter eggs in the grass (duh, should have given him the blue ones) and they can't join the RAF. That's it I think. Anyway they do work out the difference, is just probably not green and red as we see it if that makes sense.

Is mostly hereditary, misses the male line by a generation usually.

Both my DSs are red/green colour blind. It really causes us no problem at all. Apart from making sure their teachers know so that they always use suitable colours when writing on the board etc and don't get confused when the DSs paint green cats, we don't really do much about it

I thought my DD was colour blind for ages, she knew every other colour you could think of but always confused red and green.

Was told that it is quite common for children to confuse these colours till they reach about the age of 4, something to do with their development reaching a certain stage?

Really would try not to be too worried about it. Even if does turn out to be colour blind, as others have said, can still lead a perfectly normal life! HTH

thanks for these - lynettescavo - if I ask him to pick a red brick from among a sea of green ones, he looks for ages, then just picks one. If I have one red and one green, then he genuinely doesn't know the difference.

It is interesting to know that they can't really tell the difference until they're 4. My two girls were fine at this age, and I didn't have any worries about them, but maybe I just didn't notice iykwim. Or maybe it's just boys who can't do it till they're 4.

Will keep an eye on it over the next few years anyway, and if it turns out that he is colour blind, it doesn't sound like it will affect his life that much (hopefully he won't have a burning ambition to join the RAF)

thanks very much for your thoughts

I have a severe red/green colour deficiency and its done me no harm [I also struggle to identify shades of purples and dark blues, dark red and browns but I don't know if that has a different name]

Girls can get Color deficiency but its rare. Its more common to carry it

I spoke to the optitican last time I was in and the only jobs I can't do are pilot, electrician or army [I think thats the full list.. possibly fireman]

I don?t think there is any specific age that they should or shouldn?t be able to accurately distinguish colour TBH ? the ?guide line? is by 4 (both genders).
21 months is way too young (IMO) to be expected to be so accurate.
See what the Optician says, but personally I wouldn?t be (and wasn?t) worried about this below c.36months. ? DS now almost 5 and can now, and has been able to for a long time, tell the subtle differences between red, pink, purple, magenta, turquoise, blues and greens?even knows that mixing red and green makes a browny kind of colour?..
But he couldn't at 30 let alone 21 months....

My ds1 learned colours quite early (his first was purple at about 18m!) but didn't appear to distinguish between red and green until he was about 3, IIRC. Differentiating between colours is a physical thing as well as a mental thing (there are different cells for detecting different colours) so it may simply be that not all aspects have developed at the same rate. I certainly ouldn't worry about it at this time.

If you want, you could try playing a game where you ask him to bring you things that are the same colour as something that you are already holding, without saying the colour name, but if he's not yet ready to differentiate between the colours (as opposed to geting the names confused) then you won't be any the wiser!

At 21months I think ?Red? and ?Green? (and any other colour) are just words ? nothing specific ? in a similar vein to correctly stating ?mummy?, ?daddy?, "bother" or "sister" etc to the right person?..

Choosing the right one gets one reaction ( presumably copious smiles, claps and cuddles) ? getting the wrong one results in a frown and ?try again? ?.. v.confusing for a little one?.to coin a MN phrase, ?don?t sweat the small stuff? the kids will ride it through????.

Doh?. ?Choosing the right one gets one reaction ( presumably copious smiles, claps and cuddles) ? getting the wrong one results in a frown and ?try again? ?.. v.confusing for a little one?.?

should have continued to say ? remembering which one brings which response is the key to remembering what colour "word" goes with what colour "seeing" and with that the challenge of the day!!!!

My old flatmate was colour blind. It slightly inconvenienced him in that he would get me to check that a particular tie went with a shirt as he couldn't always tell, and he couldn't distinguish between the green and brown pieces of pie in Trivial Pursuits. That was pretty much it.

yeah my sense of what goes together is nonexsistant, but I don't really care

My brother is severly colour blind and gets all sorts of colours muddled. The biggest problem it caused him was when he bought a girlfriend Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" - very romantic except she had blue eyes, didn't know he was colour blind & wasn't best pleased

DS3 also confuses red and green. He is now just over 3. I took him to the optician about 6 months ago. The optician was surprised I'd taken him at such a young age and said it was very difficult to be 100% accurate in diagnosing colour blindness at this age. However, it was worth going for the check he did on the overall 'healthiness' of DS's eyes - I would never have thought to take him to the opticians otherwise.
I just tell everyone who I think needs to know - preschool leader, etc. Not a problem and I'll be delighted if it means he can't join the forces!

squonk I don't think you can think that a 21 month old who holds up a red and green lego brick and says they're both green is colour blind

more likely he's just not got an adult grasp on the concept of colour

I wouldn't worry

even if he turns out he is colour blind, he won't ever know any different and it won't hold him back in any way