COLORBLIND GUIDE
All you need to know about color blindness
CHILDREN/PARENTS COURSE
Proven Guide to Support Children With Color Vision Deficiency
The GUIDE is for parents who want to get the best start in life for their child without spending hours and days searching about color blindness on the internet or getting random advice on social networks that might not work for their child.
Click here to start this FREE online course from the beginning.
Part 1: For Parents
1. What Parents Need To Know
Color vision deficiency is the inability to distinguish certain shades of color. The term "color blindness" is also used to describe this visual condition, but very few people are completely color blind.
NOTE: The term "color blindness" in this guide is more commonly used to describe this visual condition and not monochromatic vision (total color blindness).
The day you found out that your child is color deficient you probably felt down, and there is a chance that you are still feeling a little bit confused or upset about it.
For that reason, I would like to start this course by sharing a few things to help you overcome these negative feelings!
Let's start!
Remember, children are very smart, they mirror everything we do - from how we eat, and how we talk, to even our emotional reactions and states. If you feel uncomfortable with certain topics, let's say in our case ‘color deficiency’, or have some negative feelings towards it, your child will be able to spot it and start to have a similar reaction as you do.
For example, after seeing your reaction to this topic, a child can feel upset every time color-related topics or activities come up, or even worse, try to keep their distance from peers due to the feeling of being different. The way a child perceives this condition will greatly depend on how their parents perceive it!
Let's shift focus, I would like to share a story of a very peculiar woman with you.
She is a Tetrachromat artist that lives in California, her name is Concetta Antico. What is a Tetrachomat you ask?
It means she has a fourth color receptor in her retina compared with the standard three which most people have. While those of us with three of these receptors – called cone cells – have the ability to distinguish around one million different colors, tetrachromats see an estimated 100 million! Can you believe that? If you see a red flower she can see 100 times more shades and colors in every detail, petal, or even the shadow of the same flower!
What is my point? How does it feel to hear this story? Do you feel amazed or maybe, even a tiny bit jealous? What about this woman? Do you think she feels as if other people are missing out?
The answer is, of course not!
And that’s exactly what most colorblind people feel, they usually don’t feel upset or different about their condition. They do wonder what some color would look like, but they do not necessarily feel upset about something they simply cannot see. Because it's always been like this for them.
Being colorblind myself, I can tell you, that not seeing some colors makes them kind of non-existent for us. In the same way, Concetta can see millions of colors that most people can’t see.
For colorblind people, it's a dream to see all the colors, but the world is still beautiful, and the sunset is still full of shades and colors. We might not see all the colors of the rainbow, but the way it appears in the sky still makes it seem beautiful and truly magical!
Advantages of Being Colorblind!
What Parents Need To Know?
Pink River & Orange Grass
My Childhood as a Colorblind Student!
USEFUL APPLICATION
Learn how to use different applications designed for colorblind people. These apps can help colorblind people identify colors they cannot see by showing the name of each color (Depending on age).
TYPES OF COLOR BLINDNESS
Humans have three types of light-sensing cones in the eyes: red, blue, and green. With color blindness, the pigments in these cones may be dysfunctional or missing. In these cases, the eyes have trouble differentiating between different colors. This is called color deficiency or color blindness.
These color charts show how different colorblind people see compared to a person with normal color vision.
Color-deficient children may consider red, orange, yellow, and green all names for the same hue.
Children could also believe the same about the colors violet, lavender, purple and blue. For example, grass might look orange or red to them or they will ‘see’ purple as blue because they cannot perceive the red element of the light spectrum which is added to blue to form the color purple.
It all depends on the type of color blindness a child has.
A Story For Colorblind Children
COLORING BOOK
Colorblind Children
Different Types of Color Blindness
There are seven official diagnoses of color blindness.
Four different types of color blindness fall in the red-green category, and two different types of color blindness fall in the blue-yellow category.
Red-green color blindness:
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Protanopia
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Protanomaly
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Deuteranopia,
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Deuteranomaly
Blue-yellow color blindness:
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Tritanopia
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Tritanomaly
Complete color blindness
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RED COLOR BLINDNESS
People with both red and green deficiencies live in a world of murky greens where blues and yellows stand out.
Browns, oranges, shades of red, and green are easily confused.
Both types (Protanopia, Protanomaly) will confuse some blues with some purples and both types will struggle to identify pale shades of most colors.
Protanopia (red-blind) – Individuals have no red cones.
People with protanopia are unable to perceive any ‘red’ light.
Protanopes are more likely to confuse:
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Black with many shades of red
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Dark brown with dark green, dark orange, and dark red
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Some blues with some reds, purples, and dark pinks
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Mid-greens with some oranges
Protanomaly (red-weak) – Individuals have red cones and can usually see some shades of red.
(Normal Vision. Red-Week, Red-Blind)
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GREEN COLOR BLINDNESS
Deuteranopia (green-blind) – Individuals have no green cones, and they are unable to perceive ‘green’ light.
Deuteranopes are more likely to confuse:
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Mid-reds with mid-greens
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Blue-greens with grey and mid-pinks
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Bright greens with yellows
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Pale pink with light grey
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Mid-reds with mid-brown
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Light blue with lilac
Deuteranomaly (green-weak) – Individuals have green cones and can usually see some shades of green.
(Normal Vision. Red-Week, Red-Blind)
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BLUE - YELLOW COLOR BLINDNESS
Blue-yellow color blindness is less common. The two types of color blindness in this category both make it difficult to tell the difference between blue and green and yellow and red. There are two types of blue-yellow color blindness:
Tritanopia (blue-blind) – Individuals have no blue cones.
People with tritanopia color blindness are unable to perceive ‘blue’ light.
Tritanomaly (blue-weak) – Individuals have blue cones and they can usually see some shades of blue.
People with tritanopia color blindness are unable to perceive ‘blue’ light.
(Normal Vision. Blue-Week, Blue-Blind)
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MONOCHROMACY COLOR BLINDNESS
Achromatopsia or total color blindness occurs in only one in every 33,000 people. People with monochromacy see no color at all. For these individuals, the world exists in black and white, much like old-time television. The concomitant light sensitivity often transforms everyday tasks into difficult chores.
