I think my 2 year old might be colourblind.

[CuriousEgg]

She's not quite 2 yet - almost 23 months.

Her language and comprehension is pretty strong. she understands almost everything I say, has lots of words and has started using three word sentences in the last couple of weeks (mostly basic instructions like, 'mummy, come outside.') she even counts to ten pretty accurately most of the time. However one thing that has surprised me a little is that she really seems to struggle identifying colours.

If i ask her what colour something is 9 times out of ten she will say pink or purple. If i ask her to point at a red ball on the christmas tree she stares at it looking completely lost. She seems to have a hard time with yellow and green as well but will name all the animals in a picture book and even surprised me yesterday with 'butterfly'.

Obviously I'm not super worried as she is doing really well in all other respects but I'm just wondering if there is actually a way to test a 2 year old for colourblindness or is an optician likely to laugh me out of their office if I ask them to check it out?

Also if anyone has any experience in young children with colourblindness and wants to suggest things i should think about doing to support her (if my suspicion turns out to be correct), it would be much appreciated.

At this age I don't think it matters, it's not something you need to catch early or treat, it's just something important to know before they grow up too much.
The optician uses books with coloured numbers in it to test, so if they don't know numbers it wouldn't work.
They also check 3d vision and a few other things, it was more in depth than my adult test.
I took my son to the optician at just over 3 years old and they were very doubtful whether it would be worth testing at that age as most children can't complete the tests, they said normally school age is when they first need a test.
The second time they skipped a lot of the tests as once you've passed it doesn't change

For a female to be color blind both parents must have the color blind gene. One of my sons is color blind because it runs in our family. I had one brother who was colorblind. My mother passed it on to him. My mother had two uncles who were color blind. It is passed from the female to her son's. The only way a female has color blindness is if both the mother and father have the gene.

It's very rare for a female to be colour blind.

It's too early to tell as kids don't tend to know their colours reliably at that age.

Our optician wouldn't test my DC's colour vision till later - they were in school, so around 5?

Neither could recognise all colours consistently at that age, they'd just say random colours!

DC2 did turn out to be red/ green colour blind - optician said that's not a surprise as my dad is CB and it passes down the female line, presenting in males.

My son was diagnosed when he was 3. Lots of people thought, why do you need to know at that age? It was helpful to know though as so many educational resources rely on colour. The optometrist used shapes and pictures.

Way less likely for a girl and what you are describing doesn't sound like what I noticed. I noticed consistent confusion around the same colours and some interesting coloured art work.

My father is colour blind. My other children, including other sons, are not.

My boys are both colour blind. From what I understand females can only pass the gene on, they are not colourblind themselves unless the father and mother are both colourblind. So unless you and her father are colourblind then the chances of her being are miniscule..

Thanks for all the replies! this has been really helpful. I do agree with the majority here and think it is probably very unlikely. But for a bit more context;

• I have uncles and male cousins that are colour blind. My partner is not colourblind and has no relatives that are colourblind that he is aware of. BUT he comes from a long line of only child families. no idea if that makes it more or less likely to be honest, but it seems relevant.he has no cousins/aunts/uncles going back many generations on both sides.
• she doesn't seem to have much interest in colours also. christmas lights don't seem to draw her in at all but if she notices a funny shaped ornament she loves it. Another example (that I'm probably reading too much in to!) is: Today we were playing a game on a tablet where you can create a painting by dragging paint splodges on to a picture with a pre-selected background. There was the option to have it in several multicoloured styles or black and white and she kept switching it to black and white. if i showed her it in any multicoloured option she would say 'no like it'.
• we tried one of those colourblind tests where they had a picture of a bunny merged in to the dots since we know she always can spot a bunny. when we asked her where the bunny was, she seemed completely baffled (again though, she may have been thinking something like the toddler equivalent of 'wtf, you guys? - those bunny shaped dots aren't really a bunny.')
• We do a lot of "telling her the colours" and have been for a while which is why i'm a little surprised that still struggles with 'can you show me the red ball' but can name animals. However, I appreciate a red ball is asking her two things at once so more challenging at her age.

some really good suggestions in here though and appreciate the suggestions of things to look out for and try. will update at some point probably far in the future when we find out for sure.

You could try holding up the same picture in two different colours alternately so she gets used to the pattern, then show the same card twice and see if she does a double take.

I remember wondering the same with my first, but all of mine have been the same. I remember reading somewhere though that children will struggle with "the red ball" because red is more abstract, but they stumble on the first part of the instruction. So try "the ball that is red". (So she knows 'ball' then can find those and try and narrow the colour down). I can't remember if it actually made much difference, but it might be worth reframing the instruction to see. Really though, don't worry. She will get there most likely.

My partner is not colourblind

If I remember correctly from biology at school, the gene for colourblindness is on the X chromosome but missing from the Y; so if a man has it on his X then he will be colourblind (as the "don't be colourblind actually" bit is missing from the Y); if a woman has it on one X, her other X will counteract it (unless the gene is there too). Apols if I have got that wrong - but basically women need 2 x X colourblindness (one from each parent) to be colourblind.

So if her dad is not colourblind, she cannot be.

? is that correct? I am sure someone will correct me. But I had a bf who was colourblind and so were all his brothers. None of his sisters tho (v big family hence "all").

what you say about the bunny and the black and white game is interesting @CuriousEgg; I would stay aware of this but keep doing what you are doing, she sounds great :)

When DD was tiny, she was real chatterbox with a good vocabulary. If I’d asked her to “say some colours”, she could have named several. But she used them all interchangeably! I remember asking her what colours various things were, and she said that a banana was red and a fire engine was grey.

One day it all clicked, and she started using most colour names correctly, although pink and brown took a while longer than the others.

I wouldn’t be very concerned, OP. Two is still very young and it would surely be very rare for a girl to have a severe form of colour blindness.

Still doesn't sound like my colour blind son. He will be attracted to Christmas lights. They can still see colour, just differently. The shining is also attractive to them.

Being colour blind wouldn't drive her to choose black and white paint. She would still see colours and appreciate them, they'll just look different.

I remember us wondering about this with our eldest at that age. It was during covid and we had someone from nursery doing babysitting while we worked for a bit and she wondered too as DD just didn't get it. Then we realised she could tell the difference between my coffee and DH's coffee - same brand, different colour stripe on the packet. I think it's a very abstract concept for them to put into words. As someone above said, one day it just clicked.

We were more prepared for youngest. She said everything was yellow, giving the incredible exchange:

What else is blue?
Yellow!

Mine says everything is blue.

All these responses saying you don’t need to worry “yet”. You don’t need to worry at all! It makes absolutely no difference in daily life (unless she wants to be a pilot in the RAF or something…).

I also think it's too early to tell.
involve more colours in everyday speech (look at that brown horse, your pushchair is red, see this beautiful glass is green).

I would wait for a bit until her language & drawing skills are a bit more developed. but of course if worried make an appointment for an eye test.

fwiw blue/green weakness is more common in females. still quite rare, but I suspect underdiagnosed as not as obvious.

She can only have inherited colour blindness if her father is colour blind.

Colour blindness is carried on the X chromosome. Girls have XX one from each parent. She would have to have inherited a colour blind X from both you and her father. You could be carrying a colour blind X without realising it, because your body would choose to use your other X chromosome. But if her father had a colour blind X then he would actually be colour blind himself (because his other chromosome is a Y, so his body doesn't have "two options")

All that said, I think only red-green colour blindness is inherited, and there can be other spontaneous colour disturbances? I'm not entirely sure about that. We only have standard red-green in my family!

Boots opticiAns had a book cAlled Zoe Zookeeper which was a story book but with visual tests included, including one for colour blindness. Not sure.if they still do but if you have one locally you could ask.

If you really want to check for the concept (and I still think it's too young to be so focused on it) you need lots of the same item in two colours. Like maybe counters, so just one variable with two options. Then mix them up and take one of each out. See if she can find others like one and others like the other. You don't need to use any language other than oo can you find any more like this one? Look, that one is different from these two.

I'm not saying you should do that. But if it really concerns you it's a simple thing you could do.

It does make a difference in their daily life from quite young. I wouldn't worry though. They get on just as well as any other child. It's just helpful for teachers to know to modify different activities for them. My son's teacher was trying to get him do something that relied on colour contrast and she was putting red against green. Being able to explain and have her switch one colour out meant my son could do the activity and understanding why meant he didn't let his earlier struggle affect his sense of competency and self esteem. It matters. It's just not a real problem when you know about it.

I’m wondering what you think the point of an opticians test would be? You can’t cure or treat colourblindness, it will become obvious by the time she starts school.

Yes, there’s not much point now and i wouldn't say i’m worried as such, more just curious and keen to understand how her inner world is working.
Being aware now would just mean i’d be able to anticipate ways to mitigate any problems it might cause.
btw… google is telling me tritanopia(blue yellow colourblindness) is not linked to the x gene. It’s equally present in men and women and therefore a girl can have it even if both parents dont.

Sorry, @FlowerBarrow that last paragraph wasn’t in direct response to you. More an fyi for those who mention that females can’t be colourblind if both parents aren't.

There are some colour vision tests that a 2 year old can do like the Mollon Reffin test- you don't need to be able to name the colours for this. The trouble is, not many opticians have that test as it's expensive, most would have the HRR or ishihara test which requires naming of numbers or letters. If you're booking her in for an eye test, ask when booking if they have a suitable colour vision test just so you don't waste your time.
It does sound like you might be wondering a bit prematurely though! She could just be confused... the Christmas light thing doesn't sound like colour blindness to me, and many children confuse colours for the first few years.

My partner is colourblind and it impacts his day to day life.
He is a scientist and struggles to read research papers as the default colours for comparisons are in red and green.

He did chemistry a level and as he couldn't see liquids change colour he couldn't do a lot of the practical experiments as they involves doing certain things when the liquids change colour so couldn't do chemistry as a degree.

He can't cook meat on his own or without a meat thermometer as he can't see the meat change colour so it always looks rare/raw to him. He has made himself ill by eating green ham sandwiches as he couldn't see the discoloration. He has software that his colleague developed that helps to change this images to colours he can see if this doesn't help he has to ask someone else to interpret the image for him.
His cousin has even severe colour blindness and see everything in a blue scale. He only just qualified for a driving license.

The idea that the impact of colour blind only affects your ability to say if something is red or green doesn't reflect the realities of quite a few people living with diminished colour vision. My partner has about 10% of his ability to distinguish red green colour vision and about 60% of his yellow/blue