My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

Primary aged colour blind child

13 replies

WorryIsMyName · 20/05/2013 10:36

Hi,

Does anyone else have a colour blind child of primary age? Just found out my son is green-blue colour blind (no surprise as my brother is colour blind). What do I do next? I don't believe his deficiency is very severe, else we would have noticed a lot earlier on. Should I take him to his GP for a referral?

I know I have to inform the school, although I'm not sure what they will/can do about it.

Thanks, would appreciate support from other mum's of colour-blind kids.

OP posts:
Report
SquirtedPerfumeUpNoseInBoots · 20/05/2013 11:07

My DS is colour blind, although hes not in primary school hes first year of big school.
Theres no point seeing your GP, as theres no one to refer to about it. Its not currently correctable. You might want to mention it the next time you are there so that its on his record but thats about it.

Did your optician tell you?

Theres not much the school can do, but they need to be aware. So that he is not told off for colouring the sky green and the grass blue.
You dont say how old he is, but if he can read, I've found that labelling his colouring pencils with the word helped to distinguish.
And I found that in primary school every year I had to tell the new teacher, as that information never seemed to get passed on.

Report
Orange32 · 20/05/2013 11:12

Hi

DS, 8 years old, is red/green and blue/yellow colour deficient. He does mix up his colours and his art work is very colourful but otherwise this has no impact on his education. he does have other visual issues but his colour vision has no real impact on him. He was confirmed with colour vision problems end of last year. However do mention to his teachers as sometimes they be required to colour certain object a colour which he may mix up

Report
sanam2010 · 20/05/2013 11:43

May I ask at what age you suspected something? I am a bit worried about DD1. She is only 2.5 so maybe too young to know and i know it's less likely in girls, but what worries me it's always green, blue and red she gets wrong, she's fine with all other colours. What age did you start thinking there's a problem?

Report
Fuzzymum1 · 20/05/2013 11:43

School need to be aware for sure, my friend's eldest is colour blind and during exams (he's at secondary) he has to sit in a separate room so he can ask for help for bits such as "read the text in red and answer the following questions" he wouldn't have a clue which bit was in red for example.

Report
SquirtedPerfumeUpNoseInBoots · 20/05/2013 11:49

sanam my DS was about that age when i began to suspect.
He struggled to line up all the red cars together for example.
Nursery at age 3 also had concerns.
The optician confirmed it.

Report
ProudAS · 20/05/2013 11:58

Make sure his teachers read this www.colourblindawareness.org/teachers/

Unfortunately arrangments put in place to help dyslexic children can work against those who are colour blind as they need high contrast between text and background.

Report
WorryIsMyName · 20/05/2013 12:02

Thanks for the replies. My DS is 7 (year 3), I never noticed/suspected colour-blindness, it was confirmed by my optician.

I don't think he's coloured the sky green or grass blue, perhaps his colour blindness is not too severe? He can pick out the correct colour pencils. I have played monopoly with him and did wonder if he was having trouble sorting out the money by colour - or he was just very disorganised (i line my monopoly money by denomination and in neat piles!)
It doesn't bother him, although he may be disappointed that he can't be a fighter pilot or air traffic controller.

I have informed the school, they didn't have any qualms either.

OP posts:
Report
CecilyP · 20/05/2013 12:18

DS, now way past primary school, is colour blind and I can't say I suspected anything until he failed a colour-blindness test as part of a medical in his first year at school. DS can easily identify bright primary colours but finds it difficult to differentiate more muted colours. As far as I am aware, he had no problems at school but has had to accept that certain careers are closed to him. There is no point in seeing a GP, as it is not an illness and there is no cure. However, I would let the school know that he has this diagnosis.

Report
Jenny70 · 20/05/2013 12:44

Definitely tell the school, there are a lot of activities throughout the years that are colour related - follow the red line to the object, unline nouns in red, adjectives in green etc, colour the bar chart in green for tree etc, which curve has the highest maximum etc....

All very simple to overcome with some thought, but sometimes teachers forget/overlook this, and they might need reminding.

Report
spanieleyes · 20/05/2013 19:05

I provide my colour blind children ( I have 2 in my class) with colouring pencils that have the colour name written on. It's simple to do but makes a HUGE difference to them!

Report
colourblindmum · 20/05/2013 20:21

As my new name says really! Girls can be colour-blind. The gene is on the x chromosome. If a girl has a faulty x chromosome, most of the time this will be cancelled out by a healthy one (girls having one x from their mother & one from their father). Sadly I inherited faulty chromosomes from both my parents (my dad is colour blind & my mum is a carrier). As I only have faulty chromosomes to pass on, my son is colour blind but my daughter is only a carrier (DH is not colour blind). Hope that makes sense!

There really is no problem for me being colour blind. It did rule out certain careers though. DS is growing up aware that he?ll never be a pilot!

In school colouring in was never an issue. I was quite artistic. There is a theory than Van Gough was colour blind! I?ve never had a problem following colour keys either (on graphs, charts, maps etc).

What drives me nuts though is red writing on a green / turquoise background (or vice versa). I CAN see it but it?s difficult, takes more effort IYSWIM!

Report
SadOldGit · 20/05/2013 20:37

My dad is colour deficient, my mum is a carrier, so I am colour deficient (rare in females). I married a colour deficient man (didn't know at time!) and so DD1, DS and DD2 are all colour deficient too.

Rarely affects us, other than failing Isihara test (or when I was young I couldn't see the message on C & A bags), I just have to take care when looking at different shades of colour - I have mastered the different shades on urine dipsticks now but that is through "learning" which is which

Oh and I would make a crap witness as I am shit at remembering colours ie if I see car jumping red light I may well remember it wrong (even though I have no problem spotting red light etc)

Report
SadOldGit · 20/05/2013 20:47
Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.