Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating new opportunities to improve educational accessibility for learners with special needs and disabilities. However, barriers such as inaccessible learning materials, communication difficulties, inflexible instruction, inadequate assistive technologies, limited teacher competence, poor infrastructure, and unequal technology access continue to restrict participation. This paper examines AI as a transformative solution to these challenges, focusing on learners with visual, hearing, intellectual, communication, learning, physical, autism, multiple, and emotional or behavioural disabilities. It discusses applications including computer vision, speech recognition, adaptive learning, intelligent tutoring, natural language processing, generative AI, personalised learning, and AI-supported assessment. Despite its potential to improve accessibility, communication, engagement, and independence, concerns remain regarding bias, privacy, affordability, infrastructure, and ethical governance. The paper advocates human-centred, inclusive, and equitable AI implementation.
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