Living with Red-Green Deficiency

I have a nephew who has always been very smart. As a young child, he could identify numbers and letters very easily. But when it came to identifying colors, it puzzled everyone around him why he would often describe a brown chair as green, and red purse as brown. When he reached preschool, his teacher suggested that he be tested for color vision. She commented that aside from difficulty with red and brown, my nephew showed confusion with blue and purple. True enough, the eye doctor told his parents that he had red-green deficiency, a type of color blindness.

Color blindness is a vision problem in distinguishing certain colors like red and green, or yellow and blue. It is not a form of blindness, but a deficiency in the way you see color.

People who are considered "color-blind" tend to be missing some color-sensitive cones in the eyes. Certain cells in the retina, specifically, do not respond to color the way they should.

The human retina has cone cells that see red, green and blue. All the other colors are interpreted as a mixture of these. In color-blind people, colors appear darker.

Color blindness is usually inherited, and caused by the X-linked recessive gene. If a person is color-blind, this means that his mother must either be color-blind or carry the recessive gene yet does not manifest the deficiency. Females with color-blind fathers will be color-blind only if their mothers carry the color-deficiency gene. Color-blind fathers can pass the genes only to their daughters.

The genes for color vision are on the X-chromosome. Since females have 2 X-chromosomes, if one is deficient, the other one makes up for it. This may be the reason why color deficiency is more common in boys.

The more common type is the red-green color deficiency. People with this deficiency confuse the colors red, orange, green and yellow. There is confusion with blue and purple because the red component in purple is reduced. Certain shades of brown are mistaken for dull green. Certain objects colored yellow or orange placed next to something green may be seen as red. When they are placed next to something red, they may be seen as green.

Color deficiency may vary in severity. Others may experience total color blindness, while others could be nearly normal. Perhaps, my nephew's condition is not very severe because there are only certain hues or shades that he can not identify or recognize correctly.

It is very important that if a child shows a significant confusion with color identification, parents and guardians should bring the child to an eye doctor for testing. If identified, it is a must to inform all teachers about the child's condition. Specially at the first few levels at school, many activities involve colors. It would be sad for the child to "perform poorly" on these just because of confusion with colors. If the teacher is aware, adjustments can be provided.

There is no treatment or prevention for inherited color blindness. But there are available eye glasses or contacts that have filters that can enhance color differences that are confused by the individual with the condition. Still, it would be very helpful to make the children themselves aware of their condition. They can be taught some simple ways of managing it. My nephew was a good reader so one of the first things that he learned to read was the label of crayons. Also, teaching them about the things like the position of traffic lights, for instance, would help them cope with their deficiency.

My nephew is in 4th grade now and is performing very good academically. He is quite lucky that his color deficiency is not severe. But it is very helpful that he is aware. His parents make teachers and other significant people around him aware of his condition so that he may be helped if the need arises. He is able to enjoy many things, because he can still appreciate his very colorful life.