My youngest son is colorblind.

My twins are just a couple months shy of turning 5, so I figured I'd post this in here.  We just had it confirmed at the eye dr today that Liam is colorblind.  We're not 100% certain of the severity of it, as of right now he wasn't seeing any of the red/green or blue/black colors.  There's only the 2 "types" of colorblind and he's showing signs of both.  It's pretty uncommon to have them both, so we'll have him retested in a couple of years and see if he can see any colors better.
 
We've been suspecting this for about 6 months, we weren't sure if he was having that much trouble with his colors, or if he was colorblind.  It's kind of a relief just to know for sure.  Now I can quit stressing about trying to get him to learn all his colors!  He knows some of them, he can see colors in a sunset, and colors in a rainbow.  He knows yellow, pink, and orange.  He has trouble with the dark colors.  Red, blue, purple, black, brown and sometimes green.

 

I am glad you found out now and you feel relieved.  :hug:

 

We found that out in 3rd grade for Jon.  I was always frustrated by the fact that he wouldn't accept a shade of red as red when coloring his homework, but didn't consider colorblind--although my dad is as well.  One thing that will help is to teach him the color words, and he can match the word on the crayon with the one on the paper--that is how Jon figured out how to cope with it.
 
As we were told, the only think it will keep him from being is an airline pilot

 

Yes Sharon the optometrist said "He'll never make it in the air force" and I said "I have no intention of him being in the air force"   My father and my nephew are both colorblind, which is why I started to suspect Liam might be last summer, but I wanted to give it one more try teaching him his colors, just in case he was just struggling with them.  My nephew also learned to read the names of colors to cope with it, so I'll start working on that with Liam as well!

 

I'm glad ya'll got some answers! 
 
I'm not that familiar with colorblindness. But he can see some colors just not all? 

 

I don't 100% understand either, but yes, he can see some colors.  For example, if you had say 10 different shades of red, ranging from very  light red/almost pink, to dark red/almost black, he would be able to see some of them.  He can definitely see shades of pink, but the darker colors would all just blend together.  It depends on the severity of his color blindness.  It's very rare to be 100% colorblind and to see everything in black and white, most of the time people like that will also have issues with bright lights or the sun itself.  It also depends on what he's looking at.  He can see all the colors of the bright christmas lights on our tree (red, green, blue, orange and yellow), but he couldn't tell what color the green and red m&m's were the other day.  He thought the red was orange, and the green was purple.   I also got him to look at a dark blue storage container lid, and his dark purple shirt, and my medium purple shirt, and to him, they all look dark blue, they all looked identical.  It's going to be a learning curve for all of us to figure out what colors/shades he has trouble with.  And even then, certain lighting will affect how well he can see the colors, as will what the object itself is, whether it's shiny or not...etc.
 
My dad and my nephew are both colorblind otherwise I would have just assumed Liam was just struggling with his colors!

 

I have a 9yo that is red/green colorblind on testing, but does pretty good with identifying colors.  Now what he sees and identifies as a certain color probably looks nothing like what we see it as, but he knows that what we constantly call one color.  This has not always been the case, but after years of working with him, it is easier now.  My dad on the hand, don't let the man pick out his own socks/slacks combo as who knows what would be put on.  Anything in the dark shades is probably going to be misidentified.

 

One of my twins is 100% colorblind. She has a very rare condition (like 1 in 40,000) called Achromatopsia... which basically means "without color." But it also makes her legally blind (her vision is 20/300 and not correctable) and very light sensitive. The funny thing is she can almost always tell which color is red, because in the color spectrum, it shows up as very dark. She used to confuse it with black when she was little. Now she might think that a dark navy or dark green is red, but she'll usually get red right. And if you asked her to pick something like yellow out of a basic color wheel she could, because she knows its lighter. But she'd probably also say that a light pink or light green is yellow.

My dad is red/green colorblind, which is totally unrelated. And it did, in fact, keep him from being a pilot in the navy during Vietnam. But I guess that's a good thing because he ended up staying stateside. He's gotten good at coping and matching most things... and laughs at himself when he doesn't.

 

Hmm... I think my dad is colorblind and he was in the Air Force. 
 
At least you know.. not knowing is the worst.  He'll find a way to work around it and be even a stronger person.

 

Jackie, you could be colorblind and still be in the Air Force.  You just can't be a pilot--all other jobs would be fine.

 

Good for you for picking up on it, Danielle! I don't know if I'd spot it.

It's kind of interesting in that I can't imagine it. Dielle, how'd you figure out your daughter's vision was different?

Paul and I have tuuuurrrrrible eyes and I'm sure my two will need correction. It seems like it'd be a tough thing to identify?

 

Really for about the last 6 months we've been really working with him on his colors, trying to decide if he was colorblind or just stubborn.  But it wasn't until he was eating the red and green m&m's last week and called them orange and purple with complete and utter certainty that I really decided he had to be colorblind.  So then I started asking him to tell me the colors of EVERYTHING.  And he was consistently getting dark colors wrong.  Most dark colors are blue or purple to him. 
 
I found 2 online tests for preschoolers, 1 used shapes and one used animal outlines.  Both of them showed he was red/green deficient and the animal one showed he may have trouble with the blue part of the spectrum as well.  Depending on the shade of the color, and the lighting, and whether it's shiny or flat....etc.

 

My husband is colorblind. He didn't even know until the army tested him when he was 24. He has trouble telling certain things apart (like red & purple popsicles) if they are too similar. We just simplified his wardrobe a bit--all his socks/belts/shoes for work are black. It came down his mother's side, and his nephew has it, too. In fact, SD's upcoming son will be at risk, since all three of his daughters will be carriers. (It's a sex-linked trait, males only need one copy of the gene, but females need two.)

 

Stephanie, we found out about Jon at a regular eye exam.  It was the same time we found out he needed glasses--I think in 3rd grade.  He had an exam previously at age 3, but they didn't see anything at that time--I think he was too young for the typical color blind test, and the purpose of the test at that time was a vision screen to rule out vision as a problem before evaluating him for the special needs preschool program.
 
Honestly, it really hasn't affected him much, and he is finally enjoying art again!

 

Hmm, I think DH may have some colorblindness. He is always arguing about blues and purples with me (others have confirmed what I'm seeing is correct).

 

 
Yep.  Colorblindness just keeps you from piloting.  My dad also served in the Air Force for 23 yrs without problems.
 

 
There are some reverse test that are online too with shapes.  It is funny when I look at the blob of dots and see absolutely nothing and he can see it perfectly.  Some of them a normal person will see one thing and a colorblind person will see something else.
 

 
William's was diagnosed a few years ago after I went to a pediatric eye specialist after determining his previous eye doctor had been a quack.  At first they were going to declare the results as iffie since he was only 4 and she wasn't sure if it was due to lack of number knowledge.  After I pointed out that my dad was colorblind on the same spectrum and that the boy knew his numbers, they declared it official.  We have since gone back to a regular eye doctor where his colorblindness is magically improving.  No the stupid lady he has working for him pretty much points at the number in the dots and he is just barely able to make out the color distinction to form a guess.  Without prompting, he is still colorblind.
 

You could always look up online and have him do the testing that way.  I do this with my dad sometimes just to annoy him.

 

We actually thought she was blind at birth. Then when she was about 4 months, I was sitting with a friend and looked down at Sabrina in her carseat and her eyes were wigging out. Bouncing all over. We finally figured out she had nystagmus and went through all kinds of tests to find out why (it's more of a symptom than a diagnosis), with no results. It was obvious she had some vision problems, but we didn't know more than that for a very long time.

Then about 4 1/2 years ago, actually someone here at TS (I don't remember who) posted about having Ocular Albinism. Her description sounded very similar to Sabrina. I had my pedi give us a referral to Children's and that's when we got her diagnosis. She was a little over 3 1/2. I knew she didn't see well and had noticed her having some problems with naming some colors. But I was totally shocked by the specifics of her diagnosis and cried all the way home, thinking about her never seeing colors. I don't know why but at the time, that was much more traumatic to me than her being legally blind and so blind in the sunlight. Now, it's much less important to me... maybe because she just doesn't let it bother her much.

 

Aw, Dielle, I bet you were upset. We only want things to be easy for our kids. But kids are also resilient in the most amazing ways. My friends' son has a neurological disorder where the two halves of his brain are not connected the way ours are. They were warned about major developmental issues that would follow him throughout life. Now, at three, he's a medical miracle because his brain has carved new paths to communicate and he is thriving. It's so amazing! 

 

Wow, that's really cool!