Colour Blindness

Home Treatment

Colour blindness can have a significant impact on your life. Many common activities rely on signs or signals that are colour-coded, such as traffic signs, signal lights, and maps. Choosing clothing with appropriate matching or complementary colours can also be more of a challenge.

In many cases, there are ways to help compensate for your inability to see or distinguish colours by the way you observe things or by watching other people's actions. You may rely on brightness or location rather than colour to identify objects. For example, you can learn the order of the three coloured lights on a traffic signal and know that if the bottom light is lit, it means that the light is green and it is safe to go.

Colour vision problems can affect learning abilities and reading development. Children may try to hide the fact that they cannot see certain colours by watching other classmates or even copying their work. Not being able to tell the difference between colours can be a serious problem for children and can lead to poor class work and low self-esteem.

• Testing for colour vision problems during routine vision screening may help a child avoid having trouble in school. If your child is having trouble in school, have his or her vision, including colour vision, checked by an eye doctor.
• If your child has colour vision problems, it is important that his or her teacher be aware of this. Even simple things like reading yellow chalk on a green board can be hard for a child with colour vision problems.
• You may want to offer suggestions to your child's teacher about how to help your child see better. This can include using a different colour chalk or seating your child where there is no glare from bright lights. You can test your child at home with different colours of chalk, pens, and paper to find out which colours are easiest for your child to see.

Colour vision problems may limit career choices. For example, colour photographers, interior and clothing designers, and painters need normal colour vision. Laws prohibit people with severe colour vision problems from holding certain jobs, such as airline pilot, police officer, and some positions in the military.

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Author:	Alison Allen Robin Parks, MS	Last Updated: December 6, 2007
Medical Review:	Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine Carol L. Karp, MD - Ophthalmology Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine
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