Now it's not a disability but a way of life. That's how some people with autism are challenging the conventional view. As new research suggests as many as one in fifty-eight children may have the condition. Now autistic people are using the Internet to fight for their rights to be accepted as they are, rather than be treated or cured. Jenny Clainman reports.

Who's got a bank account. Everybody got a bank account?
Truly, yes. Yep.

At this workshop in Surrey, people with autism are learning social skills that will give them the confidence to participate in everyday society. Autism is a developmental disability which affects the way a person communicates and relates to people around them. The National Autistic Society runs workshops like this so that autistic people can deal with the non-autistic world. But some people with autism are saying they shouldn't have to fit in with mainstream society. They claim that autism is just a different way of being, rather than a disorder to be treated and cured, and say they shouldn't have to change for all benefit.

Amanda Baggs is an autistic campaigner from Vermont. She is profoundly autistic and can only communicate with words by using a computer. Amanda posted this video on YouTube to show up the assumptions non-autistic people make when they see people with severe autism.

The way I naturally think and respond to things looks and feels so different from standard concepts or even visualization that some people do not consider it thought at all. But it's a way of thinking in its own right. However the thinking of people like me is only taken seriously, if we learn your language.

Amanda's video is a YouTube hit. 300,000 people have seen it since she posted it in January.

It is only when I type something in your language that you refer to me as having communication. I would like to honestly know how many people if you met me on the street, would believe I wrote this.

Amanda uses the virtual online universe "Second Life" to meet up with other autistic activists. They call their group the Autistic Liberation Front. Amanda is proud of her autism. In a world where you can choose to be whatever you what to be, she has spent months giving her avatar the same ticks and mannerisms that she has in real life. New research says that as many as one in fifty-eight people in the UK are born with autism. The Autistic Liberation Front fear that as science increasingly understands the causes of autism, this may lead to prenatal genetic engineering and selective abortion, which they brand as genocide.

I tend to liken it to it to Martin Luther King in the sort of Black Pride's Movement.

Joshua Muggleton is 17, and has Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism. He has his own blog and recognizes how the Internet has empowered autistic people. The Internet has been to the autistic community what sign language has been to the deaf community, a channel of communication that allows them to speak for themselves.

What I and l and a few other people tend to use, is the word disability which basically, is about, is not disability, it’s a difference of ability. I am happy being who I am. If I was cured, I wouldn’t be who I am. I know a lot of my friends who are Asperger's autistic who wouldn't want to be cured of their autism and their uniqueness, just fit in with society's norms.

But the National Autistic Society worries about the implications of redefining autism as a cultural difference rather than a disorder.

There is a real concern that if it is seen as just a personality trait, extreme shyness, a different way of functioning, then individuals won't be able to get the support and the help that they need so badly. It takes the emphasis away from their very complex needs and the fact that they need funding they need support and they need assistance to be able to live the sort of life that most of us would, would expect.

The people who look most set to benefit from the autistic rights movement are those who have constant access to the Internet. Autistic Liberation may mean that people with autism become dependent on computers for their freedom. But for campaigners like Amanda who spend most of their waking hours online, it's a prize worth paying to be understood on their own terms.