Hellobee Boards

I wondered about this with my daughter, even though color blindness it much more rare in girls and it doesn't run in my family. But she just didn't seem to be able to pick up colors, even though my oldest knew all the colors by around 15 months old.

Basically I was told if kids can sort by color (like with colored stacking cups or the colored counting bears), then they aren't color blind. And my daughter could sort and put all the purple bears in a pile but if I said "pick up the purple bear", she couldn't do it. So she just didn't know the color names.

Maybe buy a set of the counting bears on Amazon and give it a go? She did end up learning the color names, it just took a while.

DD is 2 and gets them right if she spontaneously names them and always gets them wrong when we ask. I found this article fascinating and reassuring: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-johnny-name-colors/

DH thought DS was colorblind too for a while at that age. There’s a few different types of color blindness, but essentially the colors have some degree of sameness. So you could ask him if a green block is the same as a red one or a brown one. Versus asking what color is this.

I just recently went through wondering the same thing with DD. Color blindness doesn't run in my family, but she's almost 2.5, very verbal, and did not get colors at all. Like, I'd ask her what color a blue car is and she'd tell me "yellow," or I'd ask her to point to something that's green, like leaves, and she'd pick a red pencil. Basically zero ability to either distinguish colors, or recognize what the concept of "color" means in the first place.

It turns out there are color blindness tests for kids - I'm sorry I don't have the link, but there's a bunch if you type "color blindness test kids" into a Google image search. They use pictures and animals instead of numbers. I showed them to DD and she had no trouble naming the images.

And a couple of weeks ago, it finally clicked for her and she can name most colors correctly. I guess it was one of those cases like in the article
@Dahlia: linked, and she just didn't get what a color is for a while.

My DS is color blind. And it all depends on shade for him. My dad is color blind so DS has a 50% chance and we were on the look out. We did several online tests once he clearly knew his numbers and could identify them 100%. The dot test asks them to say what number they see and if they can’t see some of them, they have some degree of color blindness. If there is no family history (it would have to be your family because it’s carried on the X chromosome) its unlikely (not totally impossible because... ah it’s a long thing to explain but if you’re curious look up the genetics of color blindness.)

BTW, DS can sort things by color depending on the shade. Some shades are very distinct and others are harder for him. Duller, Less primary reds and greens are the hardest as they both look brown. And gray and pink are co fusing to him especially if they are light.

My DS is 100% color blind which we discovered at his vision screen at his school (they bring in an optometrist to do it, I don't think most regular school vision screens do the color blindness test). I couldn't believe it when he didn't pass because he was 4 and knew his numbers and colors very solidly for well over a year without error.

When I took him to the eye doctor and they screened again, he failed all 8. Google color blindness test and you'll see how it's normally tested. When I asked the doctor what it was like and how it would affect him, he said basically he'll never be able to be a dentist or a pilot (ha ha) and some other careers, but not a big deal. I've never noticed it to interfere with his life at all. The doctor did mention he might have a hard time and not to let him pick out his outfits when he's older because he'll probably come up mismatched.

I worried about the same thing. Turns out he knew his colors by their French name from daycare. . I'd bring it up at his next physical, but wouldn't worry about it.