What is colour blindness?
Colour blindness is an abnormality in vision that affects colour perception. It is caused by a deficiency in one or more of the three types of retinal cones and is usually passed on to a child by their parents and is present from birth.
Most colour blind people see the surrounding world as clearly as others, but cannot clearly distinguish red, green or blue light. The red-green deficit is the most common form. In this case, the elements containing red or green cannot be seen correctly. Most people are able to adapt to colour vision deficiency and it’s rarely a sign of anything serious.
How to spot colour blindness in children
Ask your optician for a colour vision test if you think a child may have a colour vision deficiency, particularly if it started suddenly or is getting worse. The colour tests are simple, and a child will be asked to identify numbers contained within images made up of different coloured dots.