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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Does bilingualism make you smarter, or even healthier?
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:05
	Publish Date:		2016-04-26 00:00:00
	Description:		Does being bilingual make you smarter, or even healthier? Neuroscientist Fumiko Hoeft of the University of California, San Francisco says this question has stirred up a great deal of debate. To get some answers, Hoeft is turning to language immersion programs at elementary schools to see what is the impact of bilingualism on a child’s cognitive development. "We’re studying a number of Spanish/English bilingual children, and Chinese/English bilingual children….going into this program and learning two languages at the same time, and how that impacts the brain." While some researchers say bilingualism may delay the onset of dementia by 10 years, others say there are no advantages. The kids Hoeft will study start speaking a second language in kindergarten 80 percent of the time. Once they become fourth graders, they switch to spending half their time speaking English. "And they believe that by teaching it this way, then they are more likely to be fluent bilinguals." Hoeft’s large-scale neuroimaging bilingualism study is being conducted at UCSF’s Laboratory for Educational NeuroScience.
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