Colorblind Teens Experience a World of Color Through Color Correcting Glasses


Have you ever wondered how people who are colour deficient* see the world? And what happens if they try colour correcting glasses?

 I didn't know about colour correcting glasses until I had the opportunity to talk to a scientist whose research led to the development of this technology. And then I got to interview two completely charming teens who are red-gree colour deficient:

"Ryan and Garrett Allardyce are 16-year-old identical twins who live in Toronto. They are active teens involved in drama and baseball — and Garrett has his own YouTube channel. They are both colorblind, or as it is more accurately known, red-green color vision deficient (CVD).


In explaining the condition, their optometrist said to think of their eyes as having paint cans where some of the cans aren’t quite full, Andrew Allardyce, the twins’ father told me. Although this is not a technical description, it explains how they don’t experience the full range or intensity of color that people who are not color deficient do.

Red-green CVD occurs in 10 percent of men and 1 percent of women. There are two kinds of cells in the eye, rods and cones, with the latter being responsible for detecting color.

“There is a paucity of cones of that type, not a lack of it,” explains Mark Changizi, Ph.D., who has done research on colorblindness, in an interview with HealthCentral. He’s developed a pair of glasses to help with CVD; but first, more from the twins."

Watch the interview with Ryan and Garrett and read my new article on HealthCentral.

Garrett, one of the twins interviewed and a YouTuber, also did his own video about the glasses:

* (color deficiency is the new and more accurate term for colour blindness)

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