Should an autistic child be fully included?

I think it depends on how serverely austic the child is.

How prepared the teacher is to deal with the demands of the child with autism and how much support she gets from instructional assistants and the like. Not to mention the severity of the autism has a huge bearing on whether they should be included in mainstream. Kids that are high functioning such as aspergers could do well, but I have seen some children with autism who have really low cognition and they aren’t on the same plane as other children their age. I am talking about kids at 5+ who are still in diapers, are non-verbal and don’t communicate with their peers, they are in their own little world. Would this be fair to a child with severe autism to be placed in a mainstreamed environment? I think not, they need lots of one on one and extra therapy to be taught daily functional skills to live but they don’t have the cogntion for learning reading, wriitng and arithmetic.

Absolutely! All students deserve a chance to be with their peers! Like it or not, students learn as much, if not more, from each other that they learn from teachers/adults.
This is [b]NOT[/b] to say that ALL students need to be included all the time. Some autistic students have a limit to the amount of sensory input they can handle.
The mother, of one such student, cried during an ARD while telling about some students had come by their house to “see” her son. This was the first time that had ever happened.
Inclusion, is a learning two way street. Everyone learns.