Some autistics are leading a nascent civil rights movement, fueled by neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the nature of autism.

The condition, the researchers say, shouldn’t be thought of as a disease to be eradicated. The autistic brain may not be defective, but simply different — an example of the variety of human development.

They’ve found that previous measures of autistic intelligence were severely flawed, that autistic brains are highly efficient in some tasks — even superior in some intelligence tests.