now when he moves into the oval office
next week joe biden who is 78
and has been in public life for half a
century will become the first president
who suffered from stammering it's a
condition that's believed to affect
around three percent of the world's
population
our correspondent felicity baker who has
her own experience
of dealing with the stammer reports on
the challenge and frustration
that it often involves hi my name's
shelby
and i'm 11 years old and i have a
stammer
it was obvious from a young age shelby
was having problems speaking
he says school was difficult at first
but now his friends have got used to his
stammer
although it can still be frustrating it
is is sometimes quite annoying when um
people try to like guess what i'm trying
to say because people can
um like it in interrupt you without
not even knowing this is me when i was
25
trying to say my name
i've had a stammer for as long as i can
remember along with an estimated three
percent of the uk population
it's something i've worked hard to deal
with throughout my life
ten years later i now work here as a
producer in the bbc newsroom
i've never spoken about my stammer most
of my colleagues will have no idea
over the years i've learnt various
techniques to help me manage it
but i still don't like speaking on the
phone and there are plenty of words i
will go out of my way to avoid saying
including my own national deficit is not
rising
uh uh is rising it is not falling
former labour cabinet minister ed balls
knows all too well what it's like to
have a stammer
in a high-profile public role once i
became a cabinet
member in charge of all the schools in
the country it was very
exposing i stammered and then behind me
i heard a labor voice say really loudly
he's supposed to be secretary of state
and he can't even get his words out
when i was told you should be public i
said
i can't be public i can't admit a
vulnerability like that i'm a cabinet
minister it's not what people
expect and i felt quite worried about
that
that it might be seen as weak a failure
joe biden will be the first president of
the united states with a stammer
or stutter as they call it in america
vice president biden your response
please our response is look
this isn't about there's a reason why
he's
bringing up all this malarkey it's
fairly noticeable now
but he spent his whole life learning to
control his speech
i learned so much from having to deal
with stuttering
it gave me insight into other people's
pain
other people's suffering for children
like shelby
joe biden's openness about his stammer
is inspiring
it's very encouraging to see people with
probably disabilities worse than me
thrive with what they're doing today
felicity baker bbc news