My 4 year old is almost definitely color blind (I'm a carrier so he had 50% chance and we've done screenings that very clearly indicate he is, but we haven't gotten an official diagnosis.) My youngest son also has a 50% chance but we won't know for a few years. I've read statistics about how common colorblindness is, but I have not met many kids (I'm a teacher) that have color blindness. Or maybe they just never told me...! My father, uncle and grandfather all are colorblind so it is very normal to me and I'm not at all concerned about it but just curious what experience you all have had with color blindness in your family or friends. And I am curious about how understanding his teachers will be in elementary. I don't want them to take points off of an activity if he colors something in the wrong color because they look the same to him.
-
I've never met a colorblind person! Have you seen any of the viral videos of people trying special glasses for colorblindness? I cry watching every single one.
-
@travellingbee: wow! I don't totally understand how it works.
I know in K there have been a few activities where it's "color the things starting with the letter B in blue". But I would assume as long as a single color is used it wouldn't really matter.
-
My cousin's colorblind and he recently got those glasses - he was totally blown away!
-
Regarding teachers....i think of you communicated that's he's color blind they would absolutely be understanding! But you have to tell them.
-
As a teacher, I've taught a color blind student before. It was disclosed to me in the beginning of the year with all of the other heath concerns like asthma or allergies. I was told not to use certain color expo markers on the board (I forget now which ones) and that I should not ask the kids to make differentiations based on color. Honestly it never was an issue at all!
-
My husband and one of his brothers are colorblind. I guess it's fairly mild since they both didn't know it until they were adults, though my husband had suspicions earlier. It never caused any problems, and my brother-in-law was fairly artistic throughout high school. Mostly we just tease them for confusing blue and green and gray. My husband is a doctor and he had to take a workplace physical before being hired, and they did test for colorblindness and had to notify his boss about it--so I guess there are probably some professions where it is a problem (maybe pathology?), but his boss just laughed about it and it's never been a big deal.
-
I've known a couple people who were color blind. One in elementary school and one at work. For the kid in school, it didn't seem to affect how he did in school and the teachers all seemed understanding and tried to get us other kids to be understanding if we were working with him on something that involved colors. And the guy at work, it wasn't an issue, although he complained about certain colors in power point presentations because he couldn't distinguish between them (and the different colors were representing different things).
-
@travellingbee: At what age could you start to tell he was colorblind and not just not learning his colors?
-
My coworker is colorblind and he laughs about it all the time. He is a developer, so he just uses numbers and letters for color schemes when he is working on an application. He doesn't ever remember it affecting his life.
-
@Adira: Yes, I had the same experience, especially when giving BRAG status updates....so we had to put the letter in the box along with the color so it was clear whether the project was in danger or on track!
eta: this was with the red/green blindness, it turned colors brown.
-
My brother is color blind and the biggest affect it had on his life is that he had to ask his wife if his clothes are matching
My mom bought him a navy jacket for Christmas one year and he asked her why she bought him a purple coat.
-
My FIL is colorblind and the only really impact it has is that he has to write the color of his shoes on the bottom. He also predominately wears khaki pants because he says he doesn't have to worry about matching then.
You did prompt me to research the genetics of color blindness and it was really interesting, so thanks!
-
@HappyBaker: Well we weren't sure for a while, although we were suspicious since he had a good chance, and he was having trouble consistently identifying his colors when he was already able to do more complicated things. His teachers kept saying that they weren't sure why color seems so hard for him when he was so bright. I told him I had my suspicions. But there are actually online assessments that you can do. Once he was able to identify letters and numbers we could do the test. About 3.5. We sat side-by-side with my dad who is pretty severely colorblind and my dad confirmed that the things my son was not able to distinguish were also the things he wasn't able to see. Although my son's does not seem as severe as my dads.
-
My husband is severely color blind. I find is funny because he gets SO frustrated trying to dress the baby- he never knows if anything matches. One day he was so proud and presented the baby to me say, "Look at the awesome outfit I picked out today". It was TERRIBLE. He only ever dresses our older son in jeans- they match anything.
I know colorblindness is inherited from the mom. There is no one in my family (that I know of) that is color blind. However, I suspect my oldest is colorblind. He is almost 4. He is super smart. But cannot do colors. He consistently mixes up orange and green. He LOVES his "green" sweatshirt (it is orange). I'm thinking I may have to do some of those tests soon.
I've been wanting to get some of those glasses for my husband but I don't know much about them. I just googled them and saw the ENCHROMA brand is only for red-green color blindness. My husband says he has two varieties of colorblindness, so I'm not sure if I could even find a pair that would work for him. I'll have to research more.
-
@Dr. Pepper: Have him do the enchroma test online and they will tell you if they have glasses that would work for him. They said that my dad's has only a small chance of being corrected with the glasses unfortunately.
For anyone who is wondering about the genetics, the color blindness gene is carried on the X chromosome. That means that it has to come from the mother since a male only get his X from his mom (The Y has to come from Dad). So since I have 2 X's to give, my sons have a 50% chance they they got the colorblind X from me.
As far as girls, if her father is color blind, he gives his only X chromosome (which carries the colorblind gene) which makes the girl a carrier of the gene. If her mother happens to also be a colorblind carrier, then she will have a 50% chance of being colorblind herself, depending on which X she gets from her mom.
There, now you are all experts in colorblind genetics. Hahah
-
I am not in your situation, but I think I would tell the teacher/school nurse when your son starts school. In my son's class they do color-related activities (like circle 5 things in red, 6 things green, draw a blue line, etc) so I would want the teacher to know.
-
@travellingbee: I am a first grader teacher and had a color blind kiddo a few years ago 1st grade His mom showed him how to read the colors on the crayon so he knew red was r-e-d
Blue was B-L and so on
Seemed like he knew this method from a very young age -
My brother is completely red/green colorblind, which we figured out in preschool. He always did very well in school, the only major issue he's had because of it is matching his clothes!
-
I am very curious about this as we have been questioning whether our 3 year old is just terrible with remembering his colors or color blind. He always confuses red and green but seems to be able to tell them apart. He will point to something green and say it is red like the grass. Tonight he insisted on having the pink plate and then threw a tantrum when I tried to give it to him because he actually wanted purple but thought it was pink. Our older son had totally mastered his colors before 3 but I know all kids are different. Wondering if I should call his ped since I forgot to mention it at his check up.
-
@skipra: I know DD is younger 2.5 and around 2 was just like that! She masters things quickly so I wondered that too, for a bit she now at 2.5 seems 90% on most colors
-
@FaithFertility: it's really rare for a girl to be color blind. Your dad and your DH would both have to be color blind for your daughter to be.
-
My husband is severely color blind. He didn't know it until later in elementary school and says he thought he was "stupid" for not being able to learn his colors.
He learned work arounds for a lot of things, for example, traffic lights he just knows which light is in which position, because he can't tell the difference between red and green. Things being color coded make things really difficult for him. And of course there's the whole fashion issue that comes with being color blind.
He works at a pharmaceutical company and helps manufacture the drugs, and I guess a lot of things are color coded. His company paid for the Enchroma glasses and he just got them last week. They only help with the red/green issue, but he walked around for a full day amazed at what he was seeing. He couldn't believe how green grass and plants and trees are, which is crazy to me!!
Re: your son, I'd just make sure to tell teachers about his color blindness ahead of time, like any learning disability. They'll be able to work around it!
-
@travellingbee: ohh I know she isnt just was sayinh that she also had trouble remembering her colors So I wondered it then! I had no idea it was so rare for girls
-
@FaithFertility: makes sense
-
Ds is completely color blind. They caught it at his 4 year vision screening and then when I took him to an eye doctor for the first time it was confirmed. He couldn't do any of the numbers inside the colored dots and I was so sad! I think they even did pictures to confirm in case it was a number he didn't know. Anyway, I haven't noticed it very much. He still does color work at school seemingly fine, but recently I asked him to sort his Legos we were working on and he had a hard time between the light gray and dark gray.
I found a great YouTube video explaining what it is like being color blind!
Also when I asked his eye doctor how it might effect him in life, he said it shouldn't really, but there are just certain jobs he won't be able to have like pilot or dentist.
-
I diagnosed a kid in my class when he was in fourth grade. His parents didn't know. I should have noticed earlier though. When he was in kindergarten I subbed for his class for one day and he was the only not coloring his alligator green.
-
I have a friend who is color blind. It doesn't seem to have much affect on his life. He writes musicals for a living, so he's still very artistic in non-color related ways
-
It's funny, I design software and we're always thinking about accessibility. For example, making sure that color is not the only visual indicator for something. So if you had an icon you wouldn't really want to make some red and some green to mean different things without any text with it. Because we're always conscious of it in our designs I probably feel like there's a greater proportion of color blindness than there really is.
-
@ShootingStar: statistically, there are more people color blind than most people would think but I guess there is such a range that maybe many people don't even realize they are!
-
I have 3 friends who are colorblind! I always thought it was very common, and it doesn't affect their quality of life at all.
My mom bought him a navy jacket for Christmas one year and he asked her why she bought him a purple coat.
There, now you are all experts in colorblind genetics. Hahah
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
30 comments