New API to allow for ARIA live regions for announcing UI changes aurally.

An API to allow developers to trigger announcements on certain screen events and interactions. This is accomplished by adding a new HTML element aria-live and method for announcing UI changes aurally.

Use Backdrop.announce() to indicate to screen reader users that an element on the page has changed state. For instance, if clicking a link loads 10 more items into a list, one might announce the change like this.

$('#search-list') 
  .on('itemInsert', function (event, data) { 
    // Insert the new items. 
    $(data.container.el).append(data.items.el);
    // Announce the change to the page contents.
    Backdrop.announce(Backdrop.t('@count items added to @container',
      {'@count': data.items.length, '@container': data.container.title}
    ));
  });

Read about ARIA Live Regions.

See also the related Drupal issue.