onChange in dojo does not trigger page save if widget is not focused

I have a custom dojo plugin that uses a jquery dropdown plugin where the user selects one or more items, those items are added to the dojo textbox.

But whenever I fire onChange, the page save doesn't trigger. It only triggers if the original textbox is focused by the user.

In order to condense the problem I've written a short example of the problem

(To test just run saveNewValue() from console to trigger pagesave)

If I manually change the value of the textbox, the page save and publish options functions as it should.

var myDojo = undefined;
function saveNewValue() {
    console.log('Trying to save new value');
    myDojo._saveNewValue('123');
}
define(["dojo/on", // To connect events"dojo/_base/declare", // Used to declare the actual widget"dojo/aspect", // Used to attach to events in an aspect-oriented way to inject behaviors"dijit/registry", // Used to get access to other dijits in the app"dijit/WidgetSet", // To be able to use 'byClass' when querying the dijit registry"dijit/_Widget", // Base class for all widgets"dijit/_TemplatedMixin","epi/epi", // For example to use areEqual to compare property values"epi/shell/widget/_ValueRequiredMixin", // In order to check if the property is in a readonly state"epi-cms/widget/_HasChildDialogMixin","dijit/form/TextBox","dojo/_base/lang"
],
function (
    on,
    declare,
    aspect,
    registry,
    WidgetSet,
    _Widget,
    _TemplatedMixin,
    epi,
    _ValueRequiredMixin,
    _HasChildDialogMixin,
    TextBox,
    lang
    ) {
    return declare([_Widget, _TemplatedMixin, _ValueRequiredMixin, _HasChildDialogMixin, TextBox], {
        intermediateChanges: true,
        onChange: function (value) {
        },
        isValid: function () {
            return true;
        },
        postCreate: function () {
            this.inherited(arguments);
            myDojo = this;
        },
        _setValueAttr: function (value) {
            if (value === this.value) {
                return;
            }
            this._set("value", value);
            this.textbox.value = value;
        },
        _saveNewValue: function (value) {
            if (!this._started) {
                return;
            }
            console.log('saving');
            $(this.textbox).focus();
            this.textbox.value = value;
            this._set("value", value);
            this.onChange(value);
        }  
    });
});

Any tips?