Colour blind aged 4?

Colourblindness is passed down through the mother to the son. One of my sons is colour blind, the other isn't. My father is colour blind. The one who is was diagnosed at three. He could never learn his colours properly and I noticed he kept mixing up the same ones. They use pictures to assess it at that age. You can find these pictures online if you are suspicious. I did this then got a formal diagnosis with an optometrist who diagnosed children. It was useful to know.

My experience is that it is impossible to explain my colour vision to anyone. I just accept it is unknowable. I have heard many of the comments and questions that have featured on this thread. All I will say is that. I see red and I see green. I believe howrver, orhers see someting else. Make of this what you will.

DS had a favourite jumper in a ghastly colour combination. Turned out he really didn't see the same colours as us.

I think in that case it may be Protanopia, Flaxseed
He has learned that a certain shade he sees is called "Red" so he looks at a fire engine and people tell him it's "red," so his brain associates that specific shade with the word "red".
​When you show him a green object, it triggers that exact same shade in his vision and relies on his learned vocabulary and guesses "Red."
Protanopia occurs when the Red cones are completely missing.

There is another condition Deuteranopia where the Green cones are missing.

As it's more than 40 years since we looked into this I can't be 100% certain that there aren't other possibilities here too.

My husband only drew in monotone at one stage (aged 5 or 6 ish).
As it turned out he was not so called manic depressive (!) - the psychologist discovered he was colour blind.

My father and son are red/green colour blind. I have the Issihara test plates and tested my DGSs. One is colour blind but the other isn't.
My son says that he perceived red and green as different shades but accepts that they are not as we see them. Sort of shades of sludgy grey/brown. We're very sorry for him as we feel he's missing out a lot as he loves art.

Sorry, one more question.

Does someone with typical colour blindness see red objects as green and green objects as red?

The reason I ask is that he can correctly identify anything that’s red. It’s just that when you show him a green object, he seems to think it’s red.

All fascinating posts, thank you.
I will ask DD to see if there is any family history.
It hope she can establish whether this is colour blindness before he starts school.

Women can be colorblind.

But it is rarer because a woman needs two copies of the gene.
For a woman to be born red-green color blind, her father must be color blind himself, and her mother must at least be a carrier of the gene.

It also, apparently, varies by ethnicity. Re red-green, European Caucasian men have an 8% prevalence rate, the rate drops to between 4% and 6.5% for men of Chinese and Japanese ethnicity, and even lower in certain African populations. ("Worldwide prevalence of red-green color deficiency" by Jennifer Birch. published in the Journal of the Optical Society of America.)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40769301/

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12385717/?hl=en-GB

www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420(25)00465-8/abstract

It only affects boys. My grandad was colour blind - it passed through my mother to my colour blind brother. I had daughters but chances are if I’d had a son he would have been colour blind. My grandmother wasn’t sure she could marry a man who wore purple socks, it turned out he thought they were brown!!

Yes, NotSpaghetti a friend’s uncles were both colourblind and they were used during the war to look at photos of enemy territory. They could clearly see tanks and aircraft etc despite the supposed camouflage.

A young friend has only recently been diagnosed in his 30’s, after he got married. His new wife began to question his clothing choices, and realised he was colour blind because he can’t see brown/green/grey colours.

Another friend’s dh sees greens as various shades of violet and mauve*. She’s very careful about what she asks him to help with in their beautiful garden!

*Though how do they/we know what colours colourblind people see? How do you describe something you’ve never seen? That fascinates me.

My DS was only discovered to be colour blind when at the age of 30 something he applied to join the police. He failed their strict test and was rather shocked.

Labelled pencils etc for your DGS sounds like a good idea of NotSpaghetti's

My uncle was red/green colour blind. It wasn't until he started school and painted a picture of a red plant in a green pot that it was picked up on.
He went on to become a fireman and drove the fire appliance without incident. He learnt the sequence of the traffic lights so didn't need to know the colours.

Colour-blind individuals don't normally have "color distraction." Instead, their brains rely heavily on luminance (brightness), texture, shape, and outlines. This makes them good hunters (and spotters of needles in a haystack.)

This effect is so pronounced that during World War II colour-blind spotters were often taken in aircraft because they could easily see through camouflage netting that fooled regular soldiers.

There are lots of versions of what we loosely call colour blindness.
All have their own peculiarities.

There are men in my family who are colour blind.

My grandson found geography very difficult as unfortunately it's not a protected characteristic so had no help in exams to know which area of the maps were pink/red/green etc

Some jobs will be outside what's "allowed" - Airline Pilot,
​Air Traffic Controller ,Military Roles involving combat, piloting, or bomb disposal.
​Electrician / Electronics Engineer.
​Train Driver, Sea Captain...

Reading LED Indicators can be difficult, dropping things on the floor, choosing clothes to wear together, grouping things by colour (obviously).

My husband was teased a lot at school about it "what colour is this".
He bought our grandson pencils and felt tips with the name of the colour on them so life was a bit easier in colour-coded maths/science/geography etc.

Art is also problematic ' unless you embrace it.
In art, a "limitation" might just be an entirely new way to be creative.

You can now get specialised color-blind glasses, (and phone apps that read colors aloud).

...and since traffic lights now have white lines round the edges at least you can be safe driving at night!

I too am colour blind and have had countless agreement about the colour of things! It was picked up til I was an adult so my advice is get it diagnosed just so teachers can be alerted.

It’s genetic passed down from the males through the females.My father was colourblind and my son is too.Hasn,t really been an issue except when he was interviewed for a job involving electrical wires.He didn,t get it.
No more boys in the family he has three daughters.

There are simple picture type tests you can do on line. That might be easier as a start.

Sorry I didn’t mean ‘has he just developed it?’
That was misleading.

Oh we know when he’s having us on or being contrary.
This is a genuine issue.

I will advise DD to seek opticians appt. Thanks

I am colour blind and have been since birth. It can be tested for quite easily. It is a life long condition: I can't say it has affected me greatly, although I did buy a pair of black trousers once that were brown.

I think it is something you are born with, so age has nothing to do with it.
Or he may be teasing you.
Smarties can be a useful tool in establishing whether he has a genuine problem or is enjoying being contrary.

Your DGS has probably been colour bind since birth. The standard form of colour blindness is the green/red problem you describe. Take him to an optician, explain the problem and take his advice.

Here is a link to an NHS site that can help
www.nhs.uk/conditions/colour-vision-deficiency/