Dr. Karaaslan is working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education, in the Program of Intellectual Disability at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey. He got his Master’s degree from Cukurova University and Ph. D. degree from Anadolu University with emphasis on the effectiveness of Responsiveness teaching on children with autism and other developmental disabilities and their parent. While he was studying the doctoral program for Teaching Mentally Handicapped affiliated to Eskisehir Anadolu University Institute of Educational Sciences, he went to USA and has been a visiting researcher at Case Western Reserve University Mandell School in Cleveland. He also went to the Department of Special Education of San Diego State University, USA for a period of 6 months with a TUBITAK scholarship in order to carry out post-doctoral studies. Currently, he is one of the study abroad coordinators (Erasmus and Mevlana) in the department of Special Education. He involved in several Turkish government projects on teacher education and curriculum development on children with developmental disabilities. He is interested in parent and child interaction in special education and multicultural perspectives in special education.
Specifically, Dr.
Ozcan Karaaslan is interested
in children with autism, relationship-based intervention. For
nearly 10 years, he has conducted Responsive Teaching with children and their
families, who have intensely mental disability and autism spectrum disorder. He
also adapted Responsive Teaching Program for Young Children with Autism
Spectrum Disorders and their families in the United States. He was trained by
Prof. Dr. Gerald Mahoney. He was authorized on Responsive Teaching Program by
Gerald Mahoney to train the educators. He also worked with Yasemin Turan on
adapting the Turkish translation of the Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching
into Turkish. Her interests include autism, relationship-based practices and
family education, and she has book chapters and articles on this subject.