In a new small study, children with autism and average IQs consistently did better on math tests than non-autistic children in the same IQ range.

Children with autism were superior in math skills among the group because of the patterns of activation in a particular area of the brain, the area of the brain is normally associated with recognizing faces and visual objects.

“There appears to be a unique pattern of brain organization that underlies superior problem-solving abilities in children with autism,” study senior author Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said in a university news release.

In the study 18 children had autism, ages 7 to 12, and a control group of 18 children without  autism. All the children showed normal verbal and reading skills on standardized tests, but those with autism outperformed their peers without autism on the standardized math tests. The study will be published online Aug. 17 in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Researchers also had all children work on math problems while their brain activity was being measured using MRI. The brains  scans of the children with autism revealed an unusual pattern of activity in the ventral temporal occipital cortex, an area of the brain specialized for processing faces and other visual objects.

“[Previous research] has focused almost exclusively on weaknesses in children with autism,” said Menon, a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. “Our study supports the idea that the atypical brain development in autism can lead not just to deficits, but also to some remarkable cognitive strengths. We think this can be reassuring to parents.”

About one in 88 children has some form of autism, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Menon states that children with autism sometimes exhibit exceptional talents or skills.