JAWS 2025/2026 do not announce aria-current or aria-description on ARIA grid rows with role="row"

[bethwhitmer84-cmd]

Product

JAWS Screen Reader

Versions Affected

• JAWS 2025 (latest update tested)
• JAWS 2026 (latest update tested)

Versions Not Affected

• JAWS 2024 (announces correctly)
• NVDA (latest) (announces correctly)

Environment

• Windows 11
• Browsers tested: Chrome (latest), Edge (latest)
• ARIA grid implemented using WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices
• Test case hosted in CodePen / standalone HTML file: https://cdpn.io/pen/debug/azNMNWx?authentication_hash=XBkGRmJwoyZA

Summary of the Issue

When navigating an ARIA grid using tab navigation, JAWS 2025 and JAWS 2026 fail to announce row-level state information (aria-current or aria-description) when the row has role="row".

This behavior works correctly in JAWS 2024 and continues to work in NVDA, suggesting a regression or behavior change in JAWS 2025+.

Expected Behavior

When focus moves to a grid row that includes aria-current="true" or aria-description="current", JAWS should announce the row as “current”, consistent with:

• ARIA specification expectations
• Prior JAWS versions (JAWS 2024)
• Other screen readers (NVDA)

Actual Behavior (JAWS 2025 / 2026)

• JAWS does not announce “current”
• The row is announced as a regular grid row with no indication of current state
• No spoken difference is detected between rows with and without aria-current / aria-description

Key Observations

Removing role="row" from the causes JAWS 2025/2026 to announce “current” correctly. This indicates JAWS is ignoring or suppressing row-level ARIA state when role="row" is present.

Reproduction Steps

1. Load the provided test page: https://cdpn.io/pen/debug/azNMNWx?authentication_hash=XBkGRmJwoyZA
2. Navigate into the grid using Tab
3. Move focus to the first data row
4. Observe announcement behavior

[bethwhitmer84-cmd]

Another link to the test case just in case the above debug one doesn't work: https://codepen.io/elizabeth-whitmer/full/azNMNWx