possibly a cleaner way around this:
public function htmlspecialchars_decode_array($array){
$arrayJsonEncoded = json_encode($array,JSON_HEX_QUOT | JSON_HEX_APOS);
$arrayJsonEncodedSpecCharsDecoded = htmlspecialchars_decode($arrayJsonEncoded);
$arrayJsonDecoded = json_decode($arrayJsonEncodedSpecCharsDecoded,true);
return $arrayJsonDecoded;
}