The use of mobile learning in special education needs and disabilities (SEND) settings: state-of-the-art classification of studies

In developed countries, the use of mobile learning particularly has changed the delivery of teaching and learning in mainstream and special schools and evidently improved academic performance, there is still limited research on its use in underserved regions of the world. The purpose of this study is to conduct a review of existing studies on the application of mobile learning as an assistive technology in special education to enable the understanding of the depth of research in the field especially in the African context. The study adopts a systematic literature review approach to guide literature search, identification, and selection on EBSCOHOST and Scopus databases. 34 articles that were published from 2019-2024 in any language were included in this review. The review further classified these studies in terms of their years of publication, countries, aims of research, research methods and target disability the interventions were employed for. The findings revealed that there are a substantial number of studies that specifically considered the application of mobile learning in the education of special needs learners with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disabilities and fewer studies targeted auditory, visual and communication impairments, and specific learning disabilities that included dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. In terms of countries/regions of research, there were more studies conducted in Asia and Europe, sub-Saharan African countries had the least representations. Quantitative research methods were the most adopted methods of research.