How to determine color blindness in a child: signs and methods of detection

Each person has a unique set of cones - cells in the retina (photoreceptors) responsible for the color in which we see the world.

Cones are heterogeneous; they are divided into three types according to the color they are responsible for perceiving: blue, red and yellow. If any cone is not functioning correctly, color perception is impaired. Most often, the cones responsible for the red color “become naughty”; there are stories when all the cones do not work - then they talk about color blindness - a person sees the world in shades of gray. There are as many options as there are people, so if you see a green dress, don’t be surprised if someone calls it brown. And this will be a variant of the norm. But let’s talk about pathology and why it is so important to pay attention to your child’s color perception as early as possible.

What is color blindness

Color blindness is a form of human vision impairment in which the visual organs are unable to distinguish one or more shades of colors. Several varieties of this pathology are known. As a rule, it is detected most often in blood relatives, that is, it is inherited.

It is noteworthy that when signs of color blindness appear in children, you don’t have to worry that this will affect visual acuity or the general condition of the visual organ. There are also no general symptoms that would help identify this pathology as early as possible.

A person who suffers from an inability to distinguish colors may be called color blind. But there is also another name for this pathology – color blindness. There are activities that will help answer the question of how to determine color blindness in children at home. However, if the child is very small, then testing is impossible. You'll have to see an ophthalmologist.

Symptoms

There are several methods for determining color blindness in a child even before a total check before school. Parents can use them independently after the baby turns 3 years old. By this time, the color scheme has already been sufficiently formed and the pathology can be noticed if desired.

If you have any suspicions about whether someone in your family is colorblind, give him a little test. The results will dispel or confirm your doubts.

Watch the child color the pictures. Signs of color blindness - if his grass is always not green, but brown (for example), the sky is not blue, but green. This is one of the first alarm bells.
Place two identical objects in front of him (balls are possible), but of different colors. Moreover, one should be gray or black, and the second should be bright. With normal vision, children are immediately drawn to the second one. With pathology, they will be confused, they may think and take any object at random.
Another sign is constant confusion in colors. The baby knows them and confidently names them, but in practice, for him, light pink is white (for example).

All these signs of color blindness can be seen by attentive parents in children, especially if such a disease is present in the family on the maternal side. At the first suspicion of pathology, you should consult an ophthalmologist, who will either confirm or refute the diagnosis.

Stubborn statistics. Every tenth man on the globe suffers from color blindness.

Causes of color blindness

As a rule, this pathology begins to progress due to disturbances in color perception, for which receptors in the retina are responsible. If we talk about ideal vision, then in this case the photosensitive pigment contains three types of receptors that are responsible for a particular color: green, blue and red. Thanks to this, normal color vision is formed.

Color blindness, if it is congenital, is explained by the fact that a mutation has occurred on the X chromosome. As a rule, in this case we are talking about the fact that the defective gene was transmitted from mother to child.

Kinds

If a child is diagnosed with color blindness during research, the ophthalmologist will have to clarify its type. This is very important for further self-determination in life and social adaptation. Here are the main types of the disease:

Achromasia (achromatopsia) - color vision is completely absent. The child sees the world around him exclusively in shades of gray. Such color blindness is very rare (people with this vision feature make up only 0.0001% of the entire population). Its cause is the absence of color pigment in all cones in the retina.
Monochromacy is the perception of only one color. Usually accompanied by nystagmus - involuntary movements of the eyeballs. Photophobia may occur.
Dichromasia is color blindness, in which a person distinguishes two (instead of three) colors.

Dichromasia, in turn, is divided into several more subgroups:

Protanopia

The term translates as “first,” which refers to the location of shades in the color spectrum. This is the most common color blindness. Color blindness in the red region (diagnosis rate is 0.59%). Children suffering from this form of color blindness perceive red as a darker color than others. For them it is mixed with dark green or even dark brown, while they see green as light gray, light yellow, light brown. A weak form is protanomaly (0.66%).

Deuteranopia

Goes back to the ancient Greek word “deuteros” - second. This is the lack of perception of green (0.56%). This form of color blindness mixes the color green with light orange or light pink. For children of this color perception, red is the same as light green or light brown. A weak form is deuteranomaly (2.7%).

Tritanopia

Tritos means third. This is an impaired perception of the blue-violet spectrum, when the child distinguishes only shades of green and red. Very rare (0.016%). This type of color blindness is complicated by the lack of twilight vision. It does not depend on gender, as it is determined by a mutation on chromosome 7. A weak form is tritanomaly (0.01%).

This is how children with normal vision (left) and those who cannot distinguish the color red (protanopes) see the world.

A test for color blindness allows you to promptly identify a certain type of congenital anomaly in a child. This will help parents prepare him appropriately not only for school, but also for life. After all, such a baby will always be different from others in his color perception of the world around him. And how fully he adapts to it will largely depend on his family and friends. For them, in turn, the first question when making such a diagnosis is the possibility of treating the disease.

Like this. In case of complete color blindness, when the child distinguishes only gray shades, he is prescribed sunglasses to wear constantly.

Acquired color blindness

Also, pathological diseases of this type include retinitis, optic nerve atrophy, etc. If we are talking about an acquired disease, then in this case the first signs in the patient may appear not only in childhood, but also in adulthood. This means that it is not enough to know how to test a child for color blindness. It is also necessary to periodically repeat tests if there is a suspicion that such problems could be passed on to him from his parents.

It is also worth knowing that color blindness occurs against the background of extensive head injuries and brain tumors. Also, impaired color perception can be a consequence of stroke, Parkinson's disease and other changes in the functioning of the body. Sometimes color blindness develops even against the background of poisoning and intoxication.

If we talk about how to determine color blindness in a 2-year-old child, then you can conduct simple tests. Or you can study the medical history of the parents and understand how high the likelihood of the child developing the same pathology is. In this case, we are talking about a hereditary disease.

Consequences

From a health point of view, parents do not have to worry: color blindness does not affect the sharpness or clarity of vision in any way, and there is no data on possible complications with the eyes in the future. Problems usually arise in a completely different area and relate primarily to the social adaptation of a child with such a diagnosis. Here are just a few of them:

many principles of kindergarten and school education are based on color recognition, so a little color-blind person is often not able to master them, which will affect his grades;
it is difficult for him to select clothes, pencils, work with color drawings and graphs;
drawing lessons for him should be structured individually, but not every teacher agrees to this;
growing up, it will be difficult for such children to prepare their own food, since they will not be able to determine the degree of freshness or readiness of the products;
in the world around us, much is based on color markers, but they are inaccessible to colorblind people, and the most striking example of this is a traffic light, but this is a safety problem;
inability to build a career in areas such as artist, fashion designer, designer, etc.

And yet, children who have been diagnosed with color blindness enjoy life no less than their peers. It is good if, at the very beginning of his life, his parents provide him with appropriate support and help him with social adaptation. This will avoid nervous system disorders that affect many colorblind adults. Think about the future of your children.

With the world - one by one. Among famous people there are many colorblind people: Repin, Vrubel, Savrasov (artists), Christopher Nolan (film director), Paul Newman (actor).

Features of inheritance of color blindness

It is worth noting that this pathology, as a rule, develops depending on different combinations of defective and healthy genes. There are so-called genetic combinations that will help identify the disease during a woman’s pregnancy.

For example, if the mother is healthy and the father is colorblind, then, as a rule, the children of such a couple will inherit a recessive gene. This means that they will become lifelong carriers of this color blindness gene. One thing is that they themselves are most likely not to get sick. It does not matter whether the couple has a son or a daughter. In any case, they will be healthy, since they receive exclusively the Y chromosome from their father.

If the carrier of the “defective” gene is the mother, and the father is completely healthy, then with a 50% probability the daughter can also become a carrier of this disease, but will not get sick herself. If we are talking about a boy, then he has the same chances of getting this pathology or being completely healthy. It is very difficult to predict the exact outcome in this situation.

Other combinations

If the mother is only a carrier of the gene, and the father suffers from color blindness, then in this case the children (both boys and girls) have a 50% chance of developing problems with color perception. Therefore, if such a couple is planning to have a child, then immediately after his birth it is recommended to visit an ophthalmologist.

If the mother suffers from color blindness and the father is completely healthy, then in this case the born girl will become a passive carrier of the gene, but will not get sick herself. If we are talking about a boy, then he is guaranteed to receive a diagnosis of “color blindness.”

If both parents are color blind, then in this case the child is guaranteed to get this disease. And at the same time, conservative and surgical treatment of pathology is completely excluded.

However, it is not always possible to find out whether parents suffer from color blindness or whether they are carriers of its gene. In this case, you will have to think about how to determine color blindness in children. There are several simple ways. They don't even need to visit a doctor.

Adaptation

It turns out that identifying color blindness in a child is not enough. The most important thing is to teach him to live with this feature of a small organism. The more successfully his parents cope with this task, the more successfully he will adapt to the world around him in the future. In the meantime, we can only give a few tips.

Colorblindness should not be considered a disease. It will be easier for the child to come to terms with this diagnosis if he perceives it as his own uniqueness, and not a deviation.
It is useless to correct him when naming colors. This will only ruin his nervous system.
Help him choose clothes, as he may choose colors that are too contrasting. Do this unobtrusively and gently. Better yet, initially buy him things in shades that can be easily combined with each other.
When describing objects, there is no need to focus his attention on colors. A colorblind person should focus on other characteristics: size, texture, volume, additional details. For example, a shirt is not red, but checkered, soft, warm, with pockets and a belt.
It is very important to immediately notify kindergarten teachers and school teachers about your child’s color blindness. This will reduce his level of anxiety and will greatly facilitate the work of adults.

If parents understand all the responsibility that lies with them when raising a child suffering from color blindness, as practice shows, nothing will prevent him from more or less adapting to the world around him and even achieving certain successes. At the same time, you need to understand that many professions will simply be unacceptable for him due to the peculiarities of his vision. And this is not the only problem they will have to face in adulthood.

Origin of name . Color blindness is a visual feature named after the English chemist, meteorologist and naturalist John Dalton. He learned of his own color blindness at the age of 26 (1794), when it turned out that his “gray” (as he thought) jacket was actually burgundy.

How to determine color blindness in a child: does the child have color blindness or not?

It's easiest if the child already knows what the different colors are called. In this case, it is enough to ask the child to bring a green pencil. If instead he brings red or any other, then this is the first bell. However, in this case, everything is not so simple, so there is no need to panic ahead of time. If we are talking about how to determine color blindness in a 3-year-old child, then it is logical that at this age the child is already well versed in things and knows how to speak. But sometimes children simply memorize information. For example, perhaps when you showed a pencil and said that it was green, the child noticed that this object had scratches or was bitten. In this case, he will bring the necessary pencil, but will identify it not by color, but by other characteristics.

Why does the disease develop?

Color blindness in children develops for genetic reasons when a mother passes on the disease gene to her child. The disease appears predominantly in males, and girls become its carriers.

The color receptors (cones), located in the center of the retina and responsible for the three primary colors - blue, red, green, are absent or underdeveloped.

More accurate test

Doctors recommend this method of determining color blindness in children for young family members of any age, but who already know how to draw. In this case, you need to show the child two completely identical candies and wrap them in colored paper in red and black. After this, you need to ask the child to choose the one that he likes best.

If a child prefers a brighter wrapper, then he has no signs of color blindness. But if there are problems with color perception, the child will begin to hesitate and eventually choose any package, completely disregarding its color. To ensure the purity of such a test, it is worth conducting it several times every few days. If the child always chooses red, then everything is fine. But in the case of different choices, there is a suspicion that for a child the candy wrappers look exactly the same.

Of course, such tests cannot fully answer the question of how to determine color blindness in a child 4 years old or older. During this period, the child may begin to develop creative thinking, and he will not necessarily choose the brighter candy. Therefore, you need to visit a doctor.

Treatment

More recently, experts argued that color blindness is a lifelong sentence that you will have to go through to the end and put up with it, adapting to the world around you.

Today, his treatment has become possible thanks to genetic engineering methods. It allows the missing genes to be introduced into the retina as vector virus particles. In 2009, the first publication about the successful testing of this technology appeared in the journal Nature. This means that we can hope that in the very near future, modern science will allow color-blind children to distinguish all the colors of this world.

At the moment, you can only correct their color perception with special spectacle lenses:

For almost 100 years, glasses with inserted neodymium glasses have been practiced, which are prescribed for children with reduced perception of green and red colors (protanomalics and deuteroanomalies, respectively);
Not so long ago, glasses with multilayer lenses appeared in the USA, which improve color perception for children suffering from mild forms of color blindness - the lens glass contains neodymium oxide.

Research into the treatment of color blindness continues. While neodymium glasses cannot show children with impaired color perception the world in all its glory. And genetic engineering is still conducting its experiments. Therefore, parents must understand that they have a great responsibility - to teach their child to adapt to an environment that he sees differently from everyone else.

It is a fact. Despite the fact that achromasia is a pronounced vision pathology, ophthalmologists do not diagnose a single retinal defect in such people.

Specialized testing

The ophthalmologist uses the Rabkin scheme for tests. In this case, drawings are taken that depict many circles of different diameters and shades. The circles also differ in brightness. From these elements a barely noticeable picture is assembled, compiled according to a certain pattern.

There are images that really have nothing on them except circles. This is the so-called control picture. If the child has normal vision, then he will be able to determine what is shown in the pictures or what numbers are indicated on them. A total of 27 pictures are used (48 cards may be required for a more in-depth check). Of course, in this case we are talking about how to determine color blindness in an older child. The child should have an idea of colors, names of different objects and numbers.

Carrying out diagnostics

Testing is done quite quickly. It is important that the office has good lighting, which will allow you to fully see the image. You also need to make sure that the child is in a calm state, he is not sick or nervous.

The little patient is placed with his back to the window, and the doctor sits opposite him and begins to show Rabkin’s cards. Images should be placed directly at the child's eye level. The doctor should be one meter away. The child is given no more than 7 seconds to review each card. They usually start with clearer images. As a rule, they are accurately identified by all patients. But other images help identify pathology. For example, the picture number 3 shows the number 9. If the child has no problems with color perception, then he will definitely see it. But if he still cannot name the number or names it incorrectly, then there is a possibility that he suffers from color blindness. Therefore, before going to the doctor, it is worth refreshing your child’s memory. You need to make sure that the child knows the numbers perfectly.