[FeeBee10]

DS is 26 months old and pretty good at recognising colours, but still regularly mixes up red and green. Is this normal for this age, and does anyone know when they should be able to recognise colours consistently? It's hard to tell with his language whether he's just mixing up the words, because red and green were probably the first colours he was saying (traffic lights), or actually not seeing the correct colours. His language in general is pretty good I think and he's moved beyond what were obviously just guesses when asked what colour something is, most of the time.

There's no history of colour-blindness in either of our immediate families. What are the chances of colour-blindness without close family history?

Not overly concerned about this, more just curious at the moment.

[lsolaBella]

With both my dad and DH being colourblind it has been on my radar for my kids (and I am at the point where normal colour vision meets colourblind so NQR myself).

DS2 has only at 5yrs just got all his colours.

Easier way to get an idea at a younger age is basic things like sorting lego into colour sets (not 100% guaranteed though). A good optometrist will actually have kids colour blind tests. They just trace the snakes with their fingers.

Both DS1 and DS2 have passed those tests (although I will get them more thoroughly tested before they start highschool to see if they have my problem - which affects things like art and chemistry).

DD I will get checked at the end of the year when she turns 3.

ETA: DH didn't find out he was red/green colourblind until he was 21 and doing a general health check as part of his employment. He failed the colourblind test. He can correctly identify red and green, but put them together he has problems (so he HATES Christmas red/green).



This post has been edited by lsolaBella: 15/07/2012, 06:46 PM

[Pup-pup]

Just for interest, my DD knows 10+ colours and would never mix up red & green. She is now 29mths.

[AMPSyd]

-nic- Posted Yesterday, 09:48 PM
Just for interest, my DD knows 10+ colours and would never mix up red & green. She is now 29mths.

Nic - I am colourblind (due to the reason why I am short sighted). I have issues with shades and yellow / green. As a colour blind person you just can't see the difference. For me it is the lime greens and yellow (i/e I cannot tell the difference between the yellow telly tubbie and the green telly tubbie - they look the same).

OP, if your DS is colourblind it is no big deal - except that he may not be able to be an electrician because of the colours of wires.

This post has been edited by AMPSyd: 16/07/2012, 07:32 AM

[lucy-lu]

Op, your son can still be an electrician if he is colour blind , there are different varies of colour blindness (dh is colour blind and a electrician). If anything he would probably not be able to be a pilot or in the army with any colour blindness.

[GoneWithTheWhing...]

Op, your son can still be an electrician if he is colour blind , there are different varies of colour blindness (dh is colour blind and a electrician). If anything he would probably not be able to be a pilot or in the army with any colour blindness.

Or join the police force.

My husband is colour blind, he was diagnosed when he was at preschool/reception. He was always picking green bananas over ripe ones and often drew trees with red trunks. His mum didn't pick up on it because he always ate the banana without complaint so she assumed he like them that way and if she asked him about the tree trunk he told her it was a red tree. As he told me he knew it was red because he'd been told it was and as trees looked that way to him he was drawing what he saw and knew to use that colour as it was worn down.


The only other issue he has is when people comment on a document at work in red, then subsequent comments are added in green. He can't distinguish between them and doesn't like to make it common knowledge as he always gets the 'what colour is this then?' questions from someone holding up a random object. He also cannot distinguish between yellow and green, darker shades of blue, purple and red also look the same to him but if there is a contrast between the intensity of the colour he can see a difference (so a bright red does look different than a lilac for instance)

[Busy~bee]

My brother has both red/green colour blindness and pink/blue.

My Mum knew when he was just a toddler that he couldnt tell his colours properly but they wouldnt test him until he was in school.

[mumma freedles]

It's difficult to diagnose until they're about school age. There are the tests that you can trace the snake, but I've found not all kids understand those until they're 4-5yrs. (I'm an Orthoptist - so check kids vision everyday at work). The tests online/on phones aren't accurate cause they can't be calibrated properly with all the different screens/computers etc. I have a friend in her 30s who got all the numbers wrong on an iphone version of the test, but when we used a more accurate test from work she's perfectly normal. I wouldn't worry about it til they're older OP. As PPs have said, it can be annoying, but doesn't affect the majority of daily life.

Also, if anyone's intersested, the following website is a filter so you can see how the world looks to people with different types of colour deficiencies (the medical / PC term for colour blindnesss) http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

[Becky Thatcher]

My son is colour blind. He failed that test they do at the optometrist (Ishihari?) then went on for more extensive testing including a 100 hue test at a big public hospital.
It's no big deal. Ophthalmologist said that he couldn't be a fighter pilot but that is about all.
I saw him in year 1 mixing red and browns together before a helpful girl told him he was a silly billy.

[lylac]

My son is red/ green colourblind. He recognised blue for the first time when he was about 4.5.