My child Is color blind. Now what?
“Teach the child it’s a basic difference that is not detrimental. They should not be ashamed or embarrassed, and they need to communicate about it.” |
Our series “Now What?” looks closely at significant challenges encountered by many families. In this article, we explore the topic of color blindness.
Maybe your child drew red and brown trees, or maybe they handed you a purple crayon when you asked for blue. Maybe they asked why the Christmas ornaments were all brown, or they couldn’t see that their apple had a large bruise. Color blindness, or color vision deficiency (CVD), affects approximately 8 percent of boys and under 1 percent of girls. The most common kind of CVD is inherited and affects the ability to distinguish between red and green. Less common is yellow-blue color deficiency. The inability to see any color is extremely rare. Although the prevalence of color blindness varies by gender, experts recommend that all children be tested for color vision deficiencies around age 4. When Different Things Look the Same When Jennifer’s son, Dylan, was 3 or 4, she noticed he wasn’t seeing color the same way she did. She remembers teaching him all the things children need to know before preschool—his ABCs, numbers, animals, colors—but he wasn’t doing well with his colors. “He couldn’t seem to differentiate between blue and purple or red and green,” she says. “I put two different playdough caps in front of him,” she recalls. “They were both different shades of brown. I asked him what color they were, and he said one red and one green.” She soon realized that he couldn’t see red at all. This meant red, orange, pink, and purple were all about the same to him. She did some research on her own, then took him to an eye doctor. “They had him look at cards with the numbers and letters,’” she says. “It was just, ‘Oh yeah, he’s color blind.’ They gave me no sense of whether it was mild or severe. It’s not a health issue in the traditional sense, so there just wasn’t any information for me.” At first, she grieved because Dylan would never be able to appreciate the colors of the world around him, like the vibrant autumn leaves around their home in New Hampshire. “I felt it was a loss of beauty,” she says. “But he’s never perceived that loss. He just sees color differently.” Advocating in the Classroom Jennifer didn’t want Dylan to feel different. He was still in childcare when he was diagnosed, so she informed his providers without making a big deal about it. “I remember letting them know, but a little later his teacher scolded him and said, ‘Of course you know what blue is!’ I asked them to be sensitive and it still was not enough,” she says. When Dylan started kindergarten, Jennifer collected examples of how things look to him from online resources she found. “I made up a sheet and sent it to every single teacher he had until he was 11 or 12,” she says. “I communicated with his art teachers. People were receptive, but they knew very little about it.” Now 13, Dylan loves to draw highly detailed pictures with pen and ink. At home he sometimes asks his sister for help when he is working on a school project that requires him to use color. “When he was younger I tried to downplay it so he wouldn’t feel different,” Jennifer says. “But the next step is to increase his awareness so he can feel connected to a community.” About Color Blindness Two types of cells in the eye, rods and cones, are important for sight. Rods detect light and dark and help us see in low light situations. Cone cells help us see in bright light and detect color. Color vision deficiencies usually stem from being born without certain kinds of cone cells. The most common form of CVD is red-green, which is most prevalent among White populations. Red-green color blindness is a generic term for a collection of deficiencies in perceiving red and green. This deficiency affects more than just red and green but can cause color confusion between shades of red, green, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and brown. A less common form of CVD, known as blue-yellow, affects the ability to distinguish blue, green, and yellow. Depending on severity, CVD can cause partial or complete inability to distinguish between colors. Some individuals can distinguish colors in bright but not dim light. The inability to see any color at all, a condition known as achromatopsia, is extremely rare. Acquired CVD may result from illness or injury later in life, but the vast majority of children with CVD were born with it. You may recall that most humans have two sets of 23 chromosomes, one set from the egg and one set from the sperm that combine to form an embryo. All chromosome sets in the egg contain an X chromosome, while the chromosome sets in sperm may contain either X or Y. Red-green CVD is “X-linked,” or carried on the X chromosome. Individuals who have two X chromosomes almost never have color blindness gene variants on both of them. Individuals with one X carrying genes for color blindness and one Y chromosome will be unable, to some degree, to identify the range of affected colors. Color Blindness in the Classroom Children who are unable or less able to differentiate between colors may struggle in the early grades or be unfairly scolded when classroom instruction involves color descriptions. Ruhiyyih Bagley, child development specialist and early childhood educator, recommends using color vision test cards with animal images instead of numbers or letters for young children and English language learners. In her 25 years teaching early childhood and special education, she identified several children with color vision differences. When she met with the parents to discuss it, she often discovered a family history of CVD. With the parents’ permission, she included the information in the student’s health and academic records. When teaching students with CVD, Bagley recommends:
Discuss Color Blindness Openly Jennifer says parents shouldn’t expect much from a diagnosis because in her experience doctors don’t view CVD as a significant challenge. Parents will have to educate themselves on it and then educate others. “Be prepared to inform educators in whatever way you would like,” she says. “Communicate with educators when the child is young.” She says kids should understand and accept that CVD is a part of them. “Teach the child it’s a basic difference that is not detrimental. They should not be ashamed or embarrassed, and they need to communicate about it.” “And don’t be so sad,” she says. “It’s not a health problem. It’s simply a perception issue.” In order to protect the privacy of children and parents in our Britannica community, first names only are used in this article. The editors of Britannica for Parents do, however, routinely confirm the accuracy and integrity of all our sources. Sources Colblindor, All About Color Blindness Health Hearty, “The Facts About Color Blindness Genetics Will Take You By Surprise,” [n.d.] Lockett, Eleesha, “What Do Colorblind People See?” 2020 Turbert, David, “What Are the Symptoms and Causes of Color Blindness?” 2019 Learn More Vaičiulaitytė, Giedrė, “You’ll Be Amazed How People With Color Blindness See The World (57 Pics),” [n.d.] We Are Colorblind, Resources Martinez, Juliet B., “My Child Has Type 1 Diabetes. Now What?” 2020 Martinez, Juliet B., “My Child Was Diagnosed with Autism. Now What?” 2020 Martinez, Juliet B., “My Child Was Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Now What?” 2021 Martinez, Juliet B., “My Child Was Diagnosed with OCD. Now What?” 2020 |