Talking about color…

Abstract

AbstractLast August I devoted one of these columns to the subject of defective color vision and suggested that it would be very instructive to hear from persons who have a color‐vision defect about the difficulties they experience and also from parents who have a son or daughter with a color defect about the difficulties that arise at school.It transpired that Professor R. J. Fletcher, the present Chairman of our British Colour Group, had been thinking along the same lines, and this led him to organise a very interesting meeting of the Group at The City University in London on 2nd March, 1988, when several speakers described the nature of their color defects and how they managed to cope with them. I seized the opportunity to enroll two of the speakers to contribute to this column, one of them, Mrs. L. Newport, being a school teacher. She herself has normal color vision but her 15‐year‐old son Philip has a protan defect. She is, therefore, well placed to advise both school teachers and parents on how to assist children with color defects.The other contributor, Mr. S. C. Abery, is an optometrist; here he uses his knowledge as a visual specialist to describe the problems he has had as a result of his color defect, which was first established when he was four. His account begins.I hope these two contributions will set teachers and parents talking about color and working out ways of easing the lot of color‐defective youngsters. Our journal, too, can play its part by publicising the problem. I once suggested2 that it might be no bad thing if a Dalton Society were established at which those with color defects could compare notes and perhaps make recommendations on alternative methods of identification in place of color codes. How about it, Mr. Abery?Finally, I must mention that there is a very active International Research Group on Colour Vision Deficiencies which meets every two years, and the secretary of the Group, Dr. Verriest, publishes a Newsletter under the title Daltoniana!3