Dr Katy Caynes is a Lecturer in Speech Pathology at the University of Southern Queensland, with extensive clinical experience supporting infants, children and young people with developmental disability. She has held clinical, supervisory and senior statewide management roles across disability and health organisations and has considerable experience teaching communication and mealtime participation for children with cerebral palsy.

Dr Caynes is a longstanding member of a national allied health professional teaching team and has co-directed an interprofessional private practice supporting children and young people with disability and their families for more than a decade. Her work across clinical practice, education and leadership is grounded in collaborative, person-centred and participation-focused approaches.

A central focus of her career has been establishing collaborative partnerships with people with disability and their families to support meaningful participation. Her PhD, Functional Communication in Children with Cerebral Palsy: Classification and Participation Outcomes, examined the relationship between communication function and participation and included extended psychometric testing of the Functional Communication Classification System (FCCS), which she co-developed for children and young people with cerebral palsy. The FCCS has been internationally adopted and translated into multiple languages, informing clinical practice, service planning and research