In this paper, an analytical method and a difference approximation method to calculate the gradient of an objective function have been applied to the directivity optimization in an adaptive ultrasonic transducer which is combined with a point source array and an optimization algorithm (DFP method). To compare these two methods, quasi-ideal .beam with a beam width and direction specified are chosen as the desired directivity. As the numerical results, the difference approximation method shows better suppressive capacity of side lobe level, good stability in the convergence processing, faster convergence speed and excellent adaptability compared with the analytical method.