Color association, defined as the ability to identify the characteristic color of familiar objects, was studied in 2 groups of brain-damaged children with language or nonlanguage impairment and in a group of control patients. The performance of the 16 control children, 3.5-4.5 years of age, was compared with that of 31 patients, 4.5-5.5 years of age; their scores were 52.4 +/- 31.3 (mean +/- SD) and 85.9 +/- 13.1, respectively (p less than 0.005). Seventeen dysphasic, brain-damaged children and 11 age-matched children with neurologic deficits but without language delay were examined. Their scores were 57.7 +/- 11.7 and 70.6 +/- 21.9, respectively (p less than 0.05). Finally, each of the brain-damaged groups was compared with age-matched controls. Although the control children performed far better than the dysphasic children (77.6 +/- 20.9 and 57.5 +/- 11.7, respectively, p less than 0.001), there was no significant difference between controls and neurologically impaired children without language delay (77.6 +/- 20.9 and 70.6 +/- 21.9, respectively). We conclude that color association in normal children is already operative at 3.5 years and approaches maturity by 4.5-5.5 years. This function was preserved in neurologically impaired children without language delay but was significantly distrubed in the dysphasic children; therefore, the use of color should be assessed in the habilitation of children.