Is Your Child Colour Blind? Here Are Four Indicators You Must Note

While colour blindness is usually an inherited condition that can affect your ability to perceive colours, it can have a substantial impact on children's and young people’s lives—putting them on the backfoot when it comes to learning. Difficulty in recognizing or distinguishing colour is among the earliest indications of colour blindness in children. They will confuse red and green, or blue and yellow, and this will generally occur when they are learning to recognize colours during preschool or beginning grade school. They may even constantly incorrectly label colours despite continued correction.

“Colour-blind kids also tend to have abnormal colouring patterns when performing tasks such as painting or drawing. They tend to use the inappropriate colour for things, such as using green paint to leaf things instead of orange or painting the sky pink instead of blue,” Dr. Rushabh Shah, MS DNB FPOS, Saifee Hospital, told Times Now.

“While it's common for the majority of kids to get a few things wrong, persistent error should indicate impaired vision,” he added.

According to Dr. Shah, there are many important indicators of colour blindness in children. In case teachers or parents notice these signs, an eye specialist can administer a rapid colour vision test to confirm the diagnosis.

Many learning activities, like colour-coded charts, sorting activities, and traffic lights, rely on the ability to identify the colour. “A child who is colour blind may have difficulty with these, resulting in frustration or confusion in a learning environment,” said Dr. Shah. They may also not be able to follow colour-coded instructions, such as different-coloured markers or crayons.

Light sensitivity is an important indicator of colour blindness. The child might be able to tell colours apart when light is strong but struggles to do so in dim light or where colours are presented against backgrounds that are very similar to each other.

If your child is having trouble playing and keeping up with certain sports like Carom, where they are not able to identify the queen, which is red in colour, there is definitely an issue that needs to be checked. If while playing cricket, it turns out to be difficult to decipher the colour of the red ball when it is far or near the ground, you need to be alarmed.

You will also find a few signs in the behaviour of your child when you see that there is resistance, unwillingness, or inability towards playing games and they are consistently holding back in participating in such tasks where team colours clash or balls, line markings, etc. disappear.

While inherited colour blindness is not curable, there are various management and treatment plans that can help children adapt:

Some specifically designed lenses have the ability to enhance colour perception for some types of colour blindness.

Various apps help by identifying colours and providing alternate ways to tell them apart.

Parents and educators can use patterns, symbols, or labels in combination with colour-coded materials to aid the child.

Having appropriate lighting conditions can improve contrast and make colours more easily distinguishable.

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