Updatepanel and Section 508

Can anyone speak to the UpdatePanel's ability to be compatible with Section 508 or the US Government's Accessibility Guidelines? I've written some tests and the tests cause JAWS (a screen reader) to crash about 50% of the time. When JAWS does not crash, the blind users are not able to see the data within the updatepanel without some work on their end. I bring this up because ajax is becoming a big deal in the us government circles and I want to bring this up to help atlas move into those circles.

This article came out this week and makes the blanket statement that AJAX isn't accessible and it definitely brought up some discussion between me and my government friends.
http://www.fcw.com/article95257-07-17-06-Print&printLayout

Wally

(appologies if this eneded up being posted multiple times)

Wally, I can't respond directly to the UpdatePanel issue, but to fundamental issues with Ajax and Section 508. I tried reading your test athttp://216.187.235.116/atlassection508test using Jaws 6.2 to see how close this might be to achieving 508 conformance and what might be done to take it over the top. (BTW, I am sighted.)

The Click Me buttons illustrate a fundamental problem mentioned in the FCW article. Upon clicking, these the respective controls refresh with an output text message. Using a screen reader however, you wouldn't know that anything happened. True, you can advance through the page and the reader will speak the updated text, as your blind tester friend probably did, but you wouldn't know it was updated unless you took this extra step. It's that inability of the screen reader to know that something changed that poses one accessibility problem. This problem is not unique to Ajax, Flash has this problem, too.

More significant to Section 508 is its requirement that all information on a page be accessible without the use of scripting. Javascript to make non-essential visual changes, such as button rollover states, is not a violation, but Javascript to update a control would be. That severly hampers the opportunity for using Ajax, where scripting is essential to functionality. Scripted updates of div tags to show/hide content or update innerhtml is likewise a violation.

The good news may come in the fact that Section 508 is up for review and a badly needed update. W3C's WAI is involved--see their site for news. Let's hope that with advances in technology (browsers, screen readers, markup, and server technology) and more adept disabled users, the updated Section 508 specification will by less restrictive while still providing reasonable accessibility.

Tim