This Children’s Book Can Spot Color Blindness Quietly & Early At No Cost

Image courtesy of FCB Group India / Navneet

What if a child’s first lessons could also reveal they’re seeing the world differently than everyone else? Navneet Education, one of India’s biggest schoolbook publishers, is turning pages into early detection tools for color blindness, a condition that affects millions of children but often slips through the cracks.

Navneet’s new Color Blindness Detection Book looks like any other children’s learning book on the surface. But tucked into its cheerful illustrations are Ishihara-style patterns—the same ones eye doctors use to test color vision.

Image courtesy of FCB Group India / Navneet

The idea is that as children engage with the pictures, parents and teachers might notice when a child doesn’t respond to certain hues the way others do. It’s a quiet but purposeful nudge toward early intervention.

The book is the result of a collaboration between Navneet, marketing communications company FCB Group India, and a team of ophthalmologists and educators. The logic behind the project is straightforward: if color vision deficiency—more commonly known as color blindness—often goes unnoticed in the classroom, why not bring the test to the classroom itself? With an estimated more than 10 million children in India affected, the scale of the issue is hard to ignore. And because color plays a central role in subjects like science, geography, and math, undiagnosed children can face real challenges early on.

Image courtesy of FCB Group India / Navneet

Without understanding what’s really going on, teachers may assume a child is struggling with attention or comprehension, when the issue is simply that certain diagrams or visuals are difficult to interpret. Early detection doesn’t just lead to better academic support—it can also help reduce the social stigma or self-doubt that sometimes accompanies undiagnosed learning challenges. Spotting the issue early gives schools and families a chance to adjust materials or teaching methods to suit the child’s needs.

By integrating color vision tests directly into the books young children already use, this design choice rooted in empathy is making inclusion feel natural rather than added on.

Image courtesy of FCB Group India / Navneet

[via FCB Group India / Navneet, images courtesy and featured with permission]