Wait, Did Google Home Teach A Baby To Talk?

Gone are the days when "mama" or "dada" are the first words a baby utters. Kids these days are all about Google.

Or at least one kid is. Patrick Crispen, an assistant professor of clinical medical education at Keck School of Medicine of USC, says that thanks to the family's Google Home his 19-month-old son's first word was "Google."

Crispen shared a video of his son on Reddit, in which he's calling for Google to play him some animal sounds.

"That has now become an almost daily game that we play with him," Crispen told Mashable. "Us: 'Okay, Google ... what sound does a horse make?' Him: [excited giggling]. Oddly, Google Home’s nursery rhymes make him cry."

The first time their son said "Google" was even more of a surprise for Crispen and his wife than a first word likely is for most parents. That's because their son is in speech therapy for "significant receptive and expressive language deficits," he wrote on Reddit.

By the end of a baby's first year, they should be very close to saying their first word, Sherry Artemenko, M.A., C.C.C., a speech-language pathologist, told Parents. If they've reached 15 months and still haven't said anything, that's cause to call a speech pathologist and get them some help, she said.

Crispen's son still hadn't said anything by the time he reached 18 months old, he said on Reddit. "Put simply, he doesn't speak. At all. Zero words."

So to hear him say Google was a shock and a relief. Crispen and his wife were thrilled, even if his first word wasn't the typical "mama" or "dada" most parents expect.

"A child’s first word is the name of a giant, multinational corporation? To some, that’s understandably depressing," he told Mashable. "But if you look at what’s happening in the video, what you see is not a child going 'hail corporate' but rather a mother and son playing together with technology for fun and hopefully some learning."

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