3yo DS and colours.... worrying about nothing?

[matana]

DS is 3 next month, within normal range in everything developmentally so no concerns other than this. When might the average toddler know their colours and which ones might normally come first? DS hasn't been all that switched on to colours until recently, just appeared to have no interest. He's now acquired yellow, pink, orange and green but is totally clueless about red and blue in particular. Might he just be taking his time with these two colours or does it sound like cause for concern re. colour blindness? I've checked with my mum and dad and nobody in their families have it. I just thought that if any colours were to come first i might expect it to be the primary colours, not the pastel ones! His CM has also picked it up as an area to keep an eye on. Thanks.

I think he's within the normal spectrum. Mine was similar and both of his grandfathers are colour blind so I was on the lookout for it. DS is now 3 years and 2 months and is just starting to get some of them. I think 3-4 years looks the norm according to some child development sites.

My DS knew all his colours perfectly by the age of two.

He then spent the year between two and three showing no sense whatsoever and identifying yellow as green, red as green etc. Oh.

He's now just turned three and only now seems to have got a grip on them again. Although he often checks himself as the drive to call every colour green is strong within him..."it's greee....yellow mummy!"

So it sounds pretty normal to me!

Ds has known them since before 2 but suspect it's normal. No reason you can't pop him along to optician for a check though.

The Orchard Toys games are great for teaching colours. Dotty dinosaurs comes to mind. Ds 3.3 still plays now and it's how he learnt his colours.

I think it's normal to worry your child is colour blind .

I also thought the primary colours would come first and was very surprised that the first colour DS learnt was pink! He then learnt brown, white, black, orange and silver (we have a silver car). Red, green and blue came last. He still confuses blue and yellow rather weirdly. He's just about to turn three.

Colour blindness is usually inherited via the maternal grandfather. In other words, if your father is colour blind then there is 50:50 chance that your ds could be.

You're right to be aware of colour blindness as a potential cause for this, but it's unnecessary to worry about it. One in ten boys are colour blind. That's one in every class! It's really common, and not a problem for the vast majority of children.

As pp said - does it run in the family? Sometimes people don't know as it can be well hidden.

Colours are an abstract concept, and confusion is often a labelling issue rather than a vision issue.

Can he read numbers? If you google "ishihara test" you'll find some colour blindness tests made up of numbers shaped out of pebbles. This is the test the optician would do.

Blue was my dd's last colour to learn. Purple was first. I think the early colours depend on what's interesting, she had purple shoes at the time.

She has just started at a new nursery where you have to be three to go. They are teaching colours there, so it seems as though they think it is normal to teach colours to three year olds.