Summary: This page compares the main ways RBTs teach skills: discrete trial training (DTT) and the naturalistic procedures (natural environment teaching, incidental teaching, and pivotal response training), plus the verbal behavior approach and its operants (mand, tact, echoic, intraverbal). You'll learn what each one feels like to run, when a BCBA would choose one over another, and the distinctions the RBT exam likes to test.
You'll spend most of your day on the floor running teaching procedures. The BCBA writes the program. You run it, exactly as written, and you take the data that tells everyone whether it's working. So you need to know more than the definitions. You need to know what each procedure feels like in practice, why a BCBA would pick one over another, and where the exam likes to set traps.
Here's the big-picture distinction to anchor on before anything else. Some procedures are highly structured and adult-led (you decide what's taught and when). Others are loose and learner-led (you follow the kid's motivation). That spectrum, from tight structure to natural flow, is the thread running through everything below.
Discrete trial training (DTT)
DTT breaks a skill into small, clearly defined units and teaches them one trial at a time. It's the most structured procedure you'll run, and it's adult-led from start to finish. You pick the target, you present it, you control the pace.
A "discrete trial" just means one self-contained learning opportunity with a clear beginning and end. The structure is the three-term contingency you already know plus a pause:
That's the free preview of Teaching Procedures. The complete guide, plus all 851 practice questions and 3 full exams, is in the study pack and the book.