[just_lily]

At what age could your child identify colours, with some consistancy?

Its funny, I know all about ages and stages of physical and emotional development, but can't find anything about colour-recognition.

The background - I have a little boy in my daycare who will be three in July. I incorporate colour-identification throughout our day ("what a great tower you built, what colour is the block on the top?", not in a flashcard kind of way or anything) and 90% of the time he answers with enthusiasm something completely wrong.

Most of the time he just says "blue" so if something really is blue he will be correct... but I still think he is guessing.

Since boys are more prone to colour blindness I am beginning to wonder if this is an early sign, or if he is still just too young. I don't want to mention anything to his mom if it is completely normal for nearly 3yo to not know any colours.

So at what age did your child figure out colours?

 

[velochic]

Pretty much all of that stuff clicked for dd around the age of 2 (colors, shapes and random letter recognition, not recitation). However, I think the developmental range for this is really, really huge. He may just not be interested yet and my impression with most kids (I have only one, but lots of nieces and nephews) is that when they want to learn something they pretty much get to it and learn and when they aren't interested, they'll not bother with it.

Isn't color blindness usually red/green recognition?

 

[Alyantavid]

My son will be 3 in June and knows most of them. He constantly mixes up yellow and orange though.

 

[St. Margaret]

DD could do it sometime around 1.5 I think, but I know the kids at my mom's home day care usually get it around 3-4. There's one kid who's going on 5 who can't do it and my mom has started wondering about that, but mostly it's a big variation thing, and then it just clicks for them. I'd say a 3yo boy-- totally normal!

 

[Whistler]

Both DD and DS started naming them around 18 months. I could tell he wasn't color-blind by age 2 at least because he correctly named all the colors (even gray and brown) even though he wasn't talking much otherwise.

I have no idea what the average is though. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to give it some time.

 

[Aufilia]

DD knew the basics by about 18 months. From what I've read there's a huge variation in naming colors, anything between about 18 months and 3 years is fairly normal.

However, even if he can't name them he should still be able to recognize them. If you had him, say, sort blocks into piles by color, would be put all the blue blocks in one pile and red in another, and so on? Usually colorblindness only affects one or two colors in the spectrum, and red/green colorblindness is the most common type. If he cannot sort red objects from green objects from brown objects, that would be more of a signal that there's a color perception issue.

 

[jenners26]

My DD is almost 28 months, and she doesn't know any colors or shapes yet, except circle. I don't think it's anything to worry about.

 

[Snuzzmom]

Let's see... he's 29 months and he's been pretty solid on the basics since about... 22 months, maybe? It's an ongoing process. He still confuses red and purple sometimes, which I find interesting.

He knows circle, star and moon, and somtimes square and triangle. He can sing the alphabet song and count to 10, but can't really identify any letters or numbers (excpet the letter O. He loves the letter O).

ETA Also, I have to say that his being able to identify colors is way more helpful on a daily basis than I thought it would be. He can hand me the orange cup, or put away the yellow blocks, or choose his red tshirt over his white one, etc.

 

[AkRotts]

Caitlyn 23 months knows her colors fairly well and the twins who are 2 1/2 know their colors very well.

Caitlyn and Camryn like to tell me how to drive now that they know red light means stop and green light means go

 

[LuxPerpetua]

DD learned hers very early but she is very visual and became obsessed with colors around that time. For her she knew them all by 15 months old. That is very uncommon, though. You might want to try one of those visual tests where they have a shape or a number hidden among another colored background and see if he can recognize the number (rather than the color), if that would be easier for him. I'm sure you can find some of these pictures online or through an eye doctor.

 

[just_lily]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuxPerpetua You might want to try one of those visual tests where they have a shape or a number hidden among another colored background and see if he can recognize the number (rather than the color), if that would be easier for him. I'm sure you can find some of these pictures online or through an eye doctor.

I know what you mean, but I am not looking so much to diagnose him, but just figure out if it is worth mentioning to his mom. He doesn't identify numbers yet either, so it wouldn't really work either. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I do like the idea of seeing if he can sort like with like. I think I will dump out our bin of Mega Blocks after naptime today and see what happens. Thanks.

 

[nolansmummy]

My dd is 2, and she only knows pink and purple (her fav colors) but not any of the rest. She does know most her shapes though.
Ds learned around 2ish i think. It seemed like he picked it up in a day too. I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point.

 

[riverscout]

My daughter started trying to identify colors around a year and a half (everything was blue at first btw) and had the basics down by the time she turned 2.

 

[AutumnAir]

This is interesting for me as I wondered this as well. DD, who doesn't speak yet, but has lots of signs, is starting to sign colours at 15 months. She doesn't know all the signs, but recognises most of the colours if I ask her to get me the blue block for example. She's also starting to recognise some shapes.

I never spent any time around young kids before DD so I have no idea what to expect in terms of most of this developmental stuff. It's good to compare notes with others and see that there really is a wide range of normal

 

[Jessy1019]

My daughter learned before she was two, and my son is three and knows but doesn't always answer reliably . . . for awhile, it has been funny (to him) to tell us the wrong answer with a big smile on his face (and while shaking his head "no"). He gets them right when he just answers, instead of goofing off, though.

 

[LynnS6]

If a child doesn't recognize any colors by 4, I think that's when they start to worry about color blindness.

It sounds like this little boy has the concept of colors -- he knows which dimension you're labeling, just not the right colors with the right words.

This is a good little tip sheet I found for teaching colors.
http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ECC/Cont...nizeColors.pdf

I don't think MDC is a great sample for comparison because I suspect that we have skewed demographics. My kids learned their colors by 18 mos (ds - he REALLY cared) and about 26 months (dd, when she hit 2, I realized that we hadn't bothered to teach her any colors

. But I know a lot of kids who are a bit vague on colors between 2 and 3. My kids are a bit more visual learners, so they got this concept early.

 

[sunnmama]

Dd absorbed them all by 18 mo.

Ds is 27 mo, and is just like the boy you describe. Everything is BLUE! lol! And you can say, "that's RED." and then the next thing will be RED! lol wrong again

I'm not concerned at all. He can grab a red block when I am holding a red block, and a blue when I have blue, etc. He'll get it.

My 27 mo can name more dinosaurs than I can, though!

 

[blessed.mommy]

I'm not sure.

My son is 1 and has a toy with shapes in it that you drop the corrdinating color/shape block into it and if I hand him the yellow circle and ask him to show me where it goes he'll attempt to drop it in the right hole.

 

[LiLStar]

dd is 26 months. I really have no idea how much she knows! There's a book on colors that she wants me to read sometimes.. its just one of those books with like, 4 red objects on the red page, 4 green objects on the green page.. etc. I usually just say what color it is, then point to the objects and she tells me what they all are. The last page just has 4 different colored squares to identify the color, so I'll ask her which one is blue, which one is yellow.. and well, she pretty much gets them all wrong, every time *shrug* I only describe the context because its the only time I "quiz" her

its just part of the interactive book.

On the other hand.. there are times that she will DEMAND that I get her the pink..whatever instead of whatever other color I gave her. Or I might be going to the cupboard to get her a bowl and she'll say she wants the GREEN bowl. I have no idea. If I ask her to tell me what color something is, she can't, but she definitely knows what color she wants.

 

[nextcommercial]

By about age two, most kids know the colors, even if they can't say it.

Try saying "Oh.. can I please have the red block?" And build with him. See if he knows which color is which, but is just not giving the right answer.

Off topic story....

In the summers, we play "Who wants to be a millionaire" with the grade schoolers. My almost two yr old daycare boy wants to play too.

But, now matter what you ask him, the answer is always "green". Even if you ask "What did you eat for breakfast" he will say "Green".

So, we set him up so that the correct answer is always "green". "What color is a dollar bill?". "What does the grass look like?" He always enthusiastically answers "GREEN!" and we all yell "Yay Ry-Ry!!" He's actually the funnest part of the game.