Colorblind

Eli had his kindergarten screening this morning, and it appears that he may be colorblind – which is totally unexpected because we’ve never noticed him having any problems with identifying his colors. But the person at the school doing the screening showed him a book with different pictures of numbers in different colors, and he couldn’t see some of them. She said that we should make an appointment with the pediatrician, and probably have all the boys tested because colorblindness is found predominantly in males, and then we will know for sure. It’s a genetic thing, and I knew that my uncle (my mom’s brother) is colorblind. But since my brothers never had any issues like this, I never considered that it might come up with my children.

The person at the school gave me a website to look at, http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/, and it explains a little about colorblindness. I already knew that most people who are colorblind don’t see in black and white – they usually just have certain colors that look a little different than someone with ‘normal’ vision would see them. Or they are unable to tell certain colors apart. In reading the info on this website, I learned that there are different kinds of colorblindness – and with some of the most common types of colorblindness people may never know that they are color blind, just because it doesn’t really effect them much in daily life. It said that with these kinds of colorblindness, the person often just wonders why there are some many different names for colors that all look very similar or the same to them. And the person who was screening Eli at the school said that really the only thing that they might do differently at school is make the teacher aware of it so that instead of telling him to sit in the green chair, they will tell him to sit in the chair on the right, for example.  The website did say that there are some occupations, such as an airline pilot, train engineer, law enforcement agent, or electrician, that may be affected by colorblindness tests, but the type and severity of the colorblindness would play a part in whether or not a person could possibly be denied a job because of this.

Oh, and I also learned from the website that in order for my boys to have colorblindness when their father sees color normally (assuming that Michael isn't colorblind -- we'll have to have him take a look at that test too, just for fun), that means that I am a carrier of the gene.  And if I;m understanding correctly, I think that it also means that my mom must be a carrier of the gene too, since her brother is colorblind so we know that it runs on her side of the family.  That's the reason that between 5% and 8% of all males are colorblind, and only 0.5% of females are colorblind -- because, as the website explained, “Men are mainly affected because women have two X chromosomes and men have only one X and a Y chromosome. If a man's one X chromosome is color defective he will be color deficient, where as, a woman must inherit two color defective X chromosomes to be color deficient. For a woman to be color deficient, her father must be colorblind and her mother colorblind or be a carrier.”  It's interesting how it all works.  (And I'm sure glad that this little genetics lesson is being brought on by a harmless problem, and not some serious health issue).

So, after reading a little on that website, I had Eli do some of the free sample tests on the site. (Go here, http://colorvisiontesting.com/online%20test.htm, if you want to try them out). And although I assume we will have all the boys tested just to know for sure, it appears from these tests that Eli is colorblind. Here are a few of the test pictures from that site:

Colorblind individuals should see the yellow square. “Color normal” individuals should see the yellow square and a faint brown circle:

Everyone should see a 16:

"Color normal" people should see a 5:

"Color normal" people should see a 2:

There are a number of other similar picture and number cards on the website.  (And a tip for kids who may not know their numbers yet: the person doing the kindergarten screening was asking Eli if he saw anything, and then asking him to trace what he saw).  So, on the above pictures, the only things that Eli could see were the yellow square in the first picture, and the 16.  He couldn't see the brown circle, the green 5, or the pink 2 at all.  So, I’m not sure from that which type of colorblindness he would have. Since I’m assuming it’s one of the more common (and mild) types of colorblindness, he would likely either be protanomalous (red-weakness) or deuteranomalous (green-weakness). And I’m assuming that is the kind of thing that we’d find out from a pediatrician’s test.