Prevalence of Colour Blindness in School Children

Saumya Agarwal | Nishant Bansod

Abstract: Colour vision is a function of three types of cone pigments present in retina. Any abnormality in the cone pigments may cause deficiency of colour vision which is called as colour blindness. So the study was carried out in 595 students (348 boys and 247 girls) from Dr. D. Y. Patil Public School, Pimpri, and Pune, to find prevalence of colour blindness. Students were assessed using Ishiharas TypeTest for colour blindness by 38 plate edition. Study revealed total 12 students (2.02 %) were colour blind which include 11 boys (3.16 %) and 1 girl (0.40 %). It is observed that out of 11 boys with color blindness, 10 boys (2.87 %) showed deuteranomaly and 1 boy (0.29 %) showed protanomaly whereas girl showed deuteranomaly. Prevalence rate for colour blindness is found to be higher in males (3.16 %) than in females (0.40 %). This is true for congenital colour blindnes,. In which red-green colour blindness is the common most defect which is inherited as X-Chromosome linked recessive. As male have only one X-chromosome, they are prone to suffer from the defect while females are mainly carrier. This study is helpful to colour blind students to know their disability and to adjust appropriately to overcome their difficulties.

Keywords: Colour Blindness, Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Ishiharas Charts, X-Chromosome Recessive

Edition: Volume 3 Issue 4, April 2014,

Pages: 175 - 177