Introduction Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) which has been increasingly called in the USA ‘Autism spectrum disorder’ include five chronic disorders marked by early impairment in socialization, communication, and repetitive behavior. There is no known curative therapy for PDD which include autism, Asperger syndrome, and atypical autism.

Objectives Marked improvement or disappearance of autistic features in these disorders have not been reported with any therapy before.The aim of this paper is report a retrospective observational study describing the use of a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of (PDD).

Methods During the year 2018, Six with PDD particularly autism and Asperger syndrome observed at the pediatric psychiatry clinic at the Teaching Hospital of Baghdad Medical City were treated with a new therapeutic approach which includes injectable cerebrolysin as the main therapeutic component. The patients ages ranged from 3 to 8 years.

The new approach aimed at improving the cardinal feature of PDD which is the impairment of social interaction which is mostly manifested by poor responsiveness to their name and infrequent engagement with others manifested by poor eye contact and infrequently looking to faces.

Most patient also required neuroleptics to control hyperactivity and other abnormal behaviors. Trifluoperazine andprochloperazine were used as necessary.

Some patients also received citicoline as an adjunctive therapy to improve speech development.

It is expected that improving social interaction will contribute to improving other features especially verbal communication and speech.

Courses of intramuscular cerebrolysin were given in individualized regimen depending on the age and severity of the illness and with aim of improving social interactions including response to name, looking at faces, and eye contact.

Results All the patients with autism and Asperger syndrome treated with this new approach showed improvement and marked lessening of the autistic features with some patients showed complete disappearance of the main autistic features. No patient developed any side effects.

Patients observed during the same year who didn’t receive this treatment or were treated with other treatments such as omega-3 and risperdone didn’t show any lessening effect in the autistic features. However, one patient treated with citicoline injection showed improvement in the autistic features.

Conclusions Further studies are vital to study this new therapeutic approach.