“A lot of times, people think autistic means ‘suffer,’ but he overcame a lot of that. He didn’t give up,” said the mother of Jonathan Negron, 13, last week.
Before Jonathon was born, his mother, Hilda, had lived in North Bergen for 20 years. Luckily, North Bergen has numerous programs for autistic children. When Jonathon was 3, he was diagnosed by his doctors with high-functioning autism.
Autism is a neurological condition that’s characterized by difficulty communicating and forming relationships with other people, or in using language and abstract concepts. High Functioning Autism is less severe than other forms of autism, according to Autism Speaks, the world’s leading autism science advocacy that fund treatment, research, prevention, and awareness. Approximately 1 in 41 children in New Jersey is on the autism spectrum.
Throughout all his years in Horace Mann Elementary School in North Bergen, Jonathon has received straight A’s. He has one of the highest GPAs in the school, and he has one of the highest state PARCC test scores in Hudson County.
“He keeps trying over and over again.” — Hilda Negron
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“Kids who are disabled, struggling through school, and their parents might not know what to do,” Hilda said. “I was upset when he was younger and wasn’t speaking. He was walking on his tippy toes and the doctor told us the diagnosis. I remember crying, because back then there was so little known about autism.”
Hilda said her insurance provider who offered to find a doctor for speech therapy for Jonathon. He also took physical therapy.
“It took about four months of speech therapy. Then he went into pre-k right away,” she said.
Jonathon has always been among the youngest in his class, but got good grades. “Even though he’s autistic the teachers always treated him like a student with little extra help,” Hilda said. “They started noticing in pre-K that he was good at school and cared about his education. He’d finish things quickly.”
Hilda added, “Some social skills are not there, but even though autistic means he can’t tolerate things well, or needs help adjusting to things, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be bad at school.”
She noted that his social skills must be improving, because this year he was nominated and won the position of vice president of the student council.
He’s been involved in student council, boy scouts, and extra curricular activities like basketball for years. He also earned a black belt in tae kwon do.
“He especially loves science,” Hilda said. “He’s been in his robotics class for two years now. He wants to be an engineer.”
In his free time he took a class at Liberty Science Center and completed a DNA extraction experiment. He has also learned during his family’s travels around the United States. After a trip to Washington D.C., he was inspired to create a 3D replica of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. He used facts about the building to make it as realistic as possible. He created land around it and he added lights to show what the building looks like at night.
Accepted into competitive high school
He will be graduating from eighth grade this year. Before he graduates June 2016, he was nominated to be the school’s valedictorian, but the school hasn’t made a final decision. He has already been accepted into High Tech High School in North Bergen, a countywide public high school that requires an involved application to attend.
Jonathan said he’ll be studying engineering.
Hilda said that if Jonathon isn’t good at something, he keeps trying.
“He doesn’t give up,” Hilda said.