Creativity and ingenuity has always been a part of Karen's life. As a young adult, she entertained children as a clown at birthday parties, and painted pictures on people's fingernails in downtown neighbourhoods. At around the same time, Karen became the youngest student to enrol in an all-adult American Sign Language class. Her interest in ASL led her to become a counselor at a camp for deaf children and a sign-language instructor.

Fast-forward a few years. While attending graduate school at Emerson College in Boston, she was trained at the Thayer Lindsley Parent-Centered Program, for deaf and hard of hearing children, under the auspices of Dr. David Luterman. Dr. Luterman's program focused on the importance of involving parents in their children's social, emotional and cognitive skill development.

Upon graduation, Karen worked at the Muki Baum Treatment Center, a facility for children with emotional and cognitive disorders, then at The Canadian Hearing Society, where she developed programs to teach speech, ASL and English language to deaf children and adult immigrants. As both environments were unique and challenging, Karen used her ability to be creative and spontaneous to develop a number of new therapy techniques that were beneficial and fun.

As her private practice grew, parents often asked Karen how she came up with her creative therapy ideas. The siblings of her child clients were saying they wanted to play the fun games too!   With that…Thumbprint Adventures was created – a 'first ever' enrichment program that balances language development and use with creative thinking…one adventure at a time.