All About Kids' Eye-sight

[TREX8]

Let his chemistry teacher know about it. For Chemistry practical, ability to see colours is important for identification of salts/ions/gases.


During examinations, special consideration can be given. For example, after adding reagents together, and if your DS knows that he is supposed to note the colour of products obtained and/or observe a colour change, then he could ask the invigilator to tell him what is the colour. The invigilator is not supposed to volunteer the information, that is, your DS must ask and invigilator is just to simply state the colour.

For National Exams (\"O\"/\"A\" levels), the school needs to submit the names of candidates who need special consideration to Singapore Exams and Assessment Board (if I am not wrong, sometime in the beginning of the year of examination). Check with the school regarding the time frame and documents to submit and if I am not wrong, special consideration for colour blindness is not annotated in the certificate.

Herbie:

My ds is in sec 1 this year and he has colour vision deficiency. And he has to take chemistry in sec, does anyone know how sch assist these kids in sch? Tx

[Herbie]

hi TREX 8, thanks.! I hv submitted the note fr student health wrt my son’s colour blindness to the sch. So he has to memorise the change in colour equate to wat product or gases rite?

[I_belive]

MyBaby:

barney8:

Mybaby, did your DD need to get spectacles when her degree was 25 and 75?

Yes, we got spectacles for her as her opthalmologist's opinion was that DD should not strain her eyes. Moreover, DD loves to read.

Hi MyBaby,

I do not think your daughter's opthalmologist's opinion is right. As long as she can see she does not need to wear spectacles, especially 'near work'. Spectacles only make eyesight worse. You may search on the web or join
[email protected]. I did a lot of search on the web since my daughter has myopia. Your daughter's degree is so low, she gets a chance to restore her perfect vision.

[I_belive]

sall:

Her degree improves about 50 in each eye, so for these 4 yrs, it has been like that. There are also cases where children's degree increase even with the use of eye-drops, in those cases, the doctor said he would ask them to increase the application, to alternate days.

The doctor said that he would gradually stop the drop when dd looks more like an adult. I suppose he meant about 14 or 15 yrs old.

Hi Sall,
Thanks for your reply. There is an opinion that spectacles can only eyesight worse. So while she has the eye-drops she still wears spectacles full day right? Do you want to let her try not to wear specs whenever possible?

[MyBaby]

Hi I_belive, tks for the information. That myopia of 25/75 was 2 years ago. DD has since \"advanced\" to higher myopia and now on atropine... Bad family history plus her ferocious reading are not helping ...

I_belive:

MyBaby:

[quote=\"barney8\"]Mybaby, did your DD need to get spectacles when her degree was 25 and 75?

Yes, we got spectacles for her as her opthalmologist's opinion was that DD should not strain her eyes. Moreover, DD loves to read.

Hi MyBaby,

I do not think your daughter's opthalmologist's opinion is right. As long as she can see she does not need to wear spectacles, especially 'near work'. Spectacles only make eyesight worse. You may search on the web or join
[email protected]. I did a lot of search on the web since my daughter has myopia. Your daughter's degree is so low, she gets a chance to restore her perfect vision.[/quote]

[TREX8]

Well, for Chemistry practical, there is a component where an unknown substance is given and students are required to carry out a series of tests to identify the unknown. For some tests, the colour obtained is indicative of the presence of some substance. For example, blue precipitate means possibility of presence of Copper (II) salts.


All students needs to know the purpose of the tests and remember these colours, so your DS is not in any way disadvantaged. What your DS needs to do is to remember to ask for help/confirmation in identifying the colours.

Colour blindness presents in different ways in different people. I used to have a student who cannot 'see' shades of green and blue clearly. These are presented as grey colour to her. So when she carried out tests, and she observed presence of 'grey' precipitate, she would ask the invigilator to tell her the colour. According to what I know, the student needs to take the initiative to ask, invigilator cannot volunteer information.

Herbie:

hi TREX 8, thanks.! I hv submitted the note fr student health wrt my son's colour blindness to the sch. So he has to memorise the change in colour equate to wat product or gases rite?

[Herbie]

Hi trex 8, thanks! do you think i shld try to find out what is/are the shades that my son is unable to identify???

[TREX8]

Hi Herbie, what level is your DS now in School? Has he started on Chemistry Practical (specifically \"Qualitative Analysis\")? If not, maybe you need not worry too much about it yet.


Just tell your DS to observe where are his \"area of need\" first. So during class practical lessons, if the students are supposed to observe colour change or identify colours, ask him to double check with his classmates/teachers. That will give him an indication of what colours can he see correctly and what he can't.

BTW, how was it picked up? At P6 health screening? If he can get along so far without anyone noticing him seeing colours wrongly, then maybe his colour blindness is restricted to that of inability to see shades/tones that are close. Then no need to worry too much.

Colour blindness runs in my family, too. However, my 2 siblings who are colour blind managed to do Science/Physics/Chemistry in school without any problems. One sibling could not differentiate shades of green and blue, so she always ask the shop keepers for the colour of the merchandise that she is interested in. My brother is technically colour blind but he can see all colours accurately.

Herbie:

Hi trex 8, thanks! do you think i shld try to find out what is/are the shades that my son is unable to identify???

[Herbie]

Hi Trex 8, It was picked up at P5 Health Check..


Thanks for answering my question. My DS is the only colour blind person that I know so i dun know what to expect and how to help him in chemistry.. his first science lesson in school will be chemistry and i have reminded him to inform his teacher that he has colour vision deficiency..

He doesn't want to be seen as colour blind and receive special treatment so I have been reminding him that he has to tell the truth to his science teacher.

:stupid:

[TREX8]

Hi Herbie, no problem with regards to answering your questions. Just sharing what I know.


I can understand your DS not wanting to stand out from the rest. Some teachers can be rather insensitive and (either purposely or ignorantly) highlighted that your DS has colour vision deficiency in front of the class. If you or DS worry about this, maybe you might want to consider emailing the teacher and ask for a face to face meeting instead of letting DS bring the letter to the teacher. In your meeting, you can ask the teacher to be discrete about it.

Colour vision deficiency is not that uncommon, especially amongst boys, that's why this is a standard check in school health screening. Share with your DS about paying attention to whether he can tell the colour similarly like his classmates (as mentioned in my previous post) and he might realise that he can identify colours as well as his classmates. Then he might not feel that he is held back or disadvantaged by his condition.

My 2 siblings are now in their forties and I don't remember them being disadvantaged in anyway (except my sister who has to \"tahan\" funny looks from shop keepers when she asked them what's the colour of the blouse/skirt/pants/dress that she is interested in :roll: ).

Herbie:

Hi Trex 8, It was picked up at P5 Health Check..

Thanks for answering my question. My DS is the only colour blind person that I know so i dun know what to expect and how to help him in chemistry.. his first science lesson in school will be chemistry and i have reminded him to inform his teacher that he has colour vision deficiency..

He doesn't want to be seen as colour blind and receive special treatment so I have been reminding him that he has to tell the truth to his science teacher.

:stupid: