p-datepicker screenreader accessibility issues

[simo-leon-pelzer]

Describe the bug

Found several screenreader accessibility issues in the p-datepicker:

• The selection state of the day is not announced
• The current month is not announced when the month changes
• The days only announce their respective number (rather than the day, month and year)
• The accessible name for the month/year (“May”/"2026") is overridden with “Select month/select year"
• The right/left arrow in the right/left-hand column changes the month (instead of jumping to the next/previous day) (https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/dialog-modal/examples/datepicker-dialog/)

Pull Request Link

No response

Reason for not contributing a PR

• Lack of time
• Unsure how to implement the fix/feature
• Difficulty understanding the codebase
• Other

Other Reason

No response

Reproducer

https://primeng.org/datepicker

Environment

Tested with VoiceOver & Edge on MacOs and Linux Mint, Firefox & Brave and Ocular. And verified with dev tools accessibility tree.

Angular version

21.2.11

PrimeNG version

v21

Node version

No response

Browser(s)

No response

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Open the datepicker with the keyboard
2. Start a screenreader

• Navigate through days with arrow keys
• Change a month or year with the keyboard

Expected behavior

• The selection state of the day is not announced
• Expected: the selected day should be announced
• The current month is not announced when the month changes
• Expected: when the month changes via month select button, arrow buttons or arrow keys the changed month should be announced
• The days only announce their respective number (rather than the day, month and year)
• Expected: day, month and year should be announced
• The accessible name for the month/year (“May”/"2026") is overridden with “Select month/select year"
• Expected: the current selected month sould be announced too. Example: "Choose month, current May", "Choose year, current 2026"
• The right/left arrow in the right/left-hand column changes the month (instead of jumping to the next/previous day)
• Expected: The right/left arrow in the right/left-hand column changes the day