Q&A
Seeing My Way: A 3rd Grader Talks About Colorblindness and Assistive Tech
Date: April 20, 2025
At Paths to Technology, we love spotlighting the experiences and voices of people with visual impairment – especially students themselves! In this post, I’m sharing an interview with one of my third-grade students. Say hello to Hudson!
Hudson loves math (geometry), baseball (the Mets), football (the Bills), and diving into a good book. Hudson especially loves reading The Hardy Boys or nonfiction books about whatever his current interest might be – most recently, he learned all about the Titanic. Hudson is a Boy Scout who’s always up for an adventure and loves building things out of all types of materials.
Hudson has low vision and blue cone monochromacy. He accesses his classwork using a mix of regular print, large print, and digital files – whatever helps him best access the material. In this Q&A-style interview, he talks about the tools in his tech toolbox and his experiences with low vision and colorblindness.
Image credit: BCM Families Foundation
Questions and Answers
What is in your tech toolkit, and when do you use each type of tech?
I have a lot of tools that I use in school.
I have an iPad. I use it for my math textbook, my spelling workbook, and my math workbook. I write on the iPad with my Apple Pencil. I also have a Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPad. I use that when I want to type something, like writing a paragraph or sending an email. Actually, after this, I want to send a friendly email to my mom just to say hi!
I have a device called a Juno. It’s a magnifier made by APH. I use the Juno when I don’t have my iPad. It helps me see things bigger and change the colors.
There’s another tool I use too. It’s a color identifier. It’s called a Color Star, and I think I got it from APH. If I can’t tell what color something is, I press the tool on it and it tells me the color. Pretty cool, huh?
I use a computer sometimes when I want to type instead of using the Apple Pencil. I also like using it because other kids at school use computers too.
I also have a monocular. It’s not really “tech tech,” but I still use it to see faraway things.
Tell me about your visual impairment.
I have low vision, especially during the daytime, but at night, I see pretty well. It’s easier for me to see in the dark, so I think I’d probably be good in the Army someday!
My visual impairment is called BCM. That stands for blue cone monochromacy. It means I can’t see with my red and green cones, and it also makes it hard for me to see things that are far away. That’s why I use a monocular… or what I like to call my spyglass.
Some colors are really hard for me to tell apart. Like dark blue and purple… light green and yellow… gray and silver. Blue on white is hard, and so is white on blue. Black and red can be tricky, too.
Because I have trouble seeing far away, my teacher puts me in the front row. At the beginning of the school year, I was actually in the back row. But then my vision teacher talked to my classroom teacher, and I’ve been in the front ever since. That helps a lot.
What’s it like when teachers use color a lot in class?
Sometimes when teachers use colors a lot to organize things, it makes things harder for me to see.
When I was in kindergarten, I had a blue folder for Friday and a white folder for homework. That was hard to tell apart. I didn’t really care back then. It didn’t bother me much, but I’m pretty sure I put papers in the wrong folders. I could’ve said something about it (my TVI says that’s called advocating), but I didn’t. Which… yeah, that wasn’t the best choice.
My math textbook has a white background with blue answer boxes, and I was like, “Okay… that’s hard to see where I need to write.” In my spelling book last year, the headings were white letters in a blue box. I didn’t even know the book had headings until February!
There are also crossword puzzles in my spelling book that are really hard to see. Sometimes I ask my mom to write the numbers darker with a pencil, and that helps a lot. I sometimes forget to scan the pages, but my mom helps me with that too.
What do you do to access materials more easily?
I use a bunch of tools that help me.
I like to use a color identifier to figure out what color things are sometimes. It’s a fun way to figure out what color something is.
When my parents buy colored pencils, the labels are super hard to read. So they write the color names on them in black, and that helps a lot.
At school, I use my iPad to help me with my work. Sometimes I scan my textbook or spelling book and save it in a folder on my iPad. Then I open it in Notability, write the answers, and email it to my teacher. Sometimes I forget to send it, though!
I also change the settings on my iPad to make things easier to see. I use things like color filters, classic invert, and smart invert. Color filters change the screen colors and makes hard colors easier. Classic invert changes black letters on a white background to white letters on a black background. Smart invert… I forget what that one does! Oops!
If you could design a perfect school activity, app, or game, what would it look like?
If I made a game, I would make a version of Candy Crush for people with BCM, like me. Instead of using colors, all the candies would be black and white. You’d tell them apart by their patterns like stripes, dots, or zigzags. That way, people who can’t see color well could still play and have fun! I can draw some for you!
What do you want other kids to know about having low vision and BCM?
When I first found out I had BCM, I was like, “Bah! Probably everybody has it.” But then as I got older, my TVI and my parents helped me understand that not everyone does. Then I felt like, “Oh no… I’m the odd one out.” And I really don’t like being the odd one out.
But I want other kids to know this: you can still do what everyone else is doing. You might just do it in a different way.
What should teachers do to help students like you?
I think teachers should tell the kids what the color is before they use it, and not color-code things.
If students are doing a coloring page, they should label the crayons for us so we know which ones to use.
And if a teacher is reading a picture book and showing pictures, they should make sure we can see the pictures up close too.
Do you like using tech at school?
At first, I felt embarrassed using my iPad in class. There’s a rule at my school that says no tech is allowed. Well, except smartwatches. I felt like I was breaking the rule, but now I’ve just brushed it off. I told myself, “This helps me. So pull it out and just do it!”
But I don’t totally like using tech at school… at least not yet. I’ll use it if I have to, but if it’s up to me and I don’t think I need it, I probably won’t use it. I still feel a little embarrassed using the iPad in class… but not as much anymore.
Why Hudson’s Voice Matters
Whether Hudson is zooming in with his Juno, adjusting color settings on his iPad, or coming up with better designs for games and classroom tools, Hudson shows us what’s possible when students have the tools and support they need.
At Paths to Technology, we’re so proud to highlight students like Hudson who advocate for themselves and aren’t afraid to share what works (and what doesn’t). Thanks, Hudson, for sharing your experiences with us!
