As Tom puts it, "By doing this I hope to evoke the emotional connection that the parent may have lost or even never had, and make them feel less isolated and more involved in their child's learning."

Tom carefully crafted the toy to make it particularly tempting for autistic children to play with, from the smooth oak finish to the way in which the box lights up.

"I have done a little bit of user testing with my own daughter, and something that I picked up on when she was playing with it was that it was so intuitive. She knew exactly what to do even though she had never seen it or played with it before."

Of course, Passive Play was only developed as a university project, but Tom feels that if he was to go further with the project, he would undergo further testing with autistic children, and other ways to help them interact.

Projects like Passive Play are great examples of how technology can give people greater insights into those that may seem harder to connect with, or vice versa.