[Joandublin]

Hi Folks

Okay...so this is taking extreme liberties with a Lupus Forum but I figure this is the best place to get a response from world wide members

Does anyone have any experience of colour blindness? Nothing to do with Lupus. Just your ordinary run of the mill colour blindness....

My nine year old foster child is profoundly colour blind and his school is trying to help him in whatever way they can.Just recently he came home all excited and said that his art teacher gave him a special lot of pencils with the colour name taped on the outside, e.g. DG = dark green, B = blue, DB = Dark Blue, etc. I was delighted for him because he just HATED art classes up to that point....

So today he came home and he confided in me that whilst it was grand to have the colours 'named' he hadnt got a clue what colour goes where! Poor kid! For example he has no idea what colour the sky shoud be. On occasion I have asked him to name the colour of a bright blue sky and he has said 'pink' or 'purple'. I think he responds to the mood of the day.

Sorry for abusing the forum but, what the hey!, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Do any of you have experience of this and any tools or techniques that might help?

Luv n stuff
Joan:rose:

 

[granny weatherwax]

Hi Joan

My Dad is slightly colourblind Red's and Browns and he used to drive my mother up the wall especially when chosing clothing:rotfl:.

Unfortunately we didn't find a way around it for him but I am wondering if an optitian could help? just a thought!

Claire

 

[Zoi]

Hey Joan,

Two very good family friends discovered their four year old is colour blind to green, red and blue a couple of months ago and they were very worried about how to teach him the colours of every day things. They talked to a number of opthamologists and support groups for parents of colour blind children and from what they were saying, both the opthamologists and support groups have proven to be useful both for problems their son is dealing with at the moment and for anticipating and preparing for problems their son might face later on in school because of his colour blindness...

I spoke to the mum a little while ago and she said one of the best "exercises" for her son has been naming weeks after different colours and doing activities "dedicated" to a particular colour on a particular week. So on black week they may eat blackberries, mulberries and chocolate and make blackberry cake or have black-eyed peas, black beans, licorice et cetera et cetera. They also spend that week talking about what other things have the particular colour the week "has" (around the house for example). She said she read an article in a magazine called Family Matters a few months ago on this exercise that helped her with ideas on how best to go about this.

Now I'm not sure this is the same article she meant, but I found the magazine online and think this might be it:

http://www.ronitbaras.com/index.php/focus-on-the-family/parenting-family/how-to-teach-kids-colors/

Hope this helps a little

:flowery:

Zoi

 

[Joandublin]

Thanks Claire and Zoi

I had a look at that link and there were a couple of tips that I think might be useful. He was four years old as well when I discovered his colour vision problems.

Claire he does see a specialist (or at least he did). I think they just have him down for two yearly appointments now. They did a battery of tests on him over an 18 month period and he is profoundly colour blind. It certainly makes for some interesting moments

The world must look very strange with such colour deficiency but I suppose he doesnt know any different so it doesnt matter too much to him. Its mostly a problem when it comes to school and other people teasing him about it.

Thanks again!
Cheers
Joan:rose:

 

[BigSis]

Your poor ((little lad)) Joan
Does he like art Joan, in spite of the colours he uses looking like nonsense to his school mates?
If he does perhaps he could use charcoal or a limited palette of sepia tinted pastels in his lessons. His teacher obviously meant well but missed the point I think.

Good luck to you

 

[Marika]

poor kid,

I remember reading an article about a guy who was colour blind ...but actually he only saw grey white or black. so for him food looked disgusting and it was aproblem for him to eat meat ect.

as for art classes, ok he can't mix the prim, colours but there are so many other different ways for kids to express themselves in art from collages to figure paper mache anything. my son (who is really gifted in art) was once repremanded in junior school bec ause they had to draw an owl...his was purple...so....it looked great,,teacher gave him a bad mark.
writing the colour on the crayons wont help him.
i'm dyslexic and i remember a teacher screaming at me to use a dictionary to spell words....but how can u use one if u dont how to spell the word in the first place!!!!

o.k. so he can never grow up to be an electrician....
he'll have to be an MP. they seem to make a good living...:wink2::wink2::wink2::wink2:

love marika

 

[Joandublin]

Thanks Sis and Marika

Yes I think you are right - the teacher, while trying to help, sort of missed the point a bit. She also made a big 'issue' out of giving him his 'special' pencils which I think only embarrassed and frustrated him further as he still isnt sure what colour goes where!

He does like other forms of art, like making things - its just the colouring bit that he hates. Most primary schools have a big emphasis on colouring and many of the text books are colour coded with important texts highlighted so I have to watch out for those things.

Thanks again. Sometimes its funny to see it in action though. I remember the day he was officially diagnosed after almost 18 months of tests. I came home from the hospital and decided it was time to try and explain it to him so I sat him down on my lovely dark coffee coloured sofa and explained how he could see colours differently than lots of other people, etc. He patted the sofa under him and said - 'like the way this is red?' If ever one needed confirmation :hehe: He must think he is living in a brothel. I have shades of coffee, brown and beige all over the house! :lol:

He also has a favourite blanket which belonged to my mother and he often curls up on the sofa with it. Its a sort of shade of apple green. Well after a long time I bought a new blanket (red) so that meant there were now two blankets in the press. I sent him out one evening to get his green blanket and he looked perplexed but I didnt pick up on it. He was ages in the hallway rummaging through the press. I was calling out 'its right there, the first thing you should see in the press - the green blanket'. After a few minutes of shouting back and forward I went out and saw the blanket exactly where it was supposed to be so I said 'Look - there it is! I think I'll have to get you glasses'. He stared at the blanket and said 'Thats green?'...... He cant see any colour in it at all. It looks white to him.

Makes for interesting conversations at times!

Thanks again
Luv n stuff
Joan:rose: