Accessible, 508 compliant Ajax Loading Indicator

How do I make an Ajax Loading Indicator Accessible / 508 compliant. My pre-compliance strategy is like so: initiate ajax request, set timeout to show an indicator(div containing a paragraph with text and a spinner in the center of the screen) if the request doesn't finish within one second, if the indicator is showing when the request is complete, remove indicator. I've tried doing things like setting focus on the indicator text to no avail. JAWS version 9 (whic开发者_开发百科h does not support WAI-ARIA) is the target screen reader and I am using jQuery though any solution will do.

Thanks!

If your using Jaws 9 there's no way to do this. I can think of two options. One is pop up an alert box telling the user to be pacient. Option two would be to add a read only text field and update that field with the timer value. I think jaws will notice the change if the user enters forms mode but can't test this out since I don't have a setup up for web development. I'd really suggest you push for a new version of Jaws and use WAI-ARIA as a selling point. Live reagons would make this a lot easyer.