The Seven Cognitive G’s
Helping parents spot learning strengths and struggles to guide next steps.
“We all carry different buckets. The goal isn’t to fix them—it’s to understand how they fill, leak, or overflow.”
— Rhonda Austin, M.Ed.
We All Have Buckets in Our Brains
I started to notice my 7-year-old granddaughter was having trouble with memory, and given our family’s strong history of dyslexia—me, my son, my dad, and my grandfather.
I had some concerns. So I decided to do a little short-term memory test while we were grocery shopping.
Before we got out of the car, I told her to remember three words: apple, pencil, pear. She repeated them confidently, and we headed into Kroger. At the door, she nailed them. A few steps in, I checked again. She smiled and said, “banana… strawberry… and… blueberries?” One more check, and she shrugged, “I don’t remember, Nonna.”
Later, in the car, she turned to me and asked, “Nonna, why did you ask me to remember those words?”
I told her, “Well, we all have buckets in our brains.”
Her eyes widened. “WE HAVE BUCKETS IN OUR BRAINS?!”
“Not really,” I laughed. “But let’s pretend. Your short-term memory bucket holds things just for a little while, like those three words. But when your bucket has a leak, like yours does, things slip out faster.”
She paused, then said, “Oh, now I get it. My teacher gets frustrated when I forget stuff she just said. But now I know that I just have a hole in my bucket!”
Jessie is full of spark and style. You should’ve seen her black-and-white tights under her Christmas outfit that year—they made the outfit sing.
That shopping trip planted the seed for what would become my Buckets and Barrels model—a simple, powerful way to explain cognitive differences in a way kids (and adults) can actually understand.
What are Buckets and Barrels?
It is a checklist, tool, that makes hidden struggles visible and easier to support.
G’s can be powerful; through my work as a diagnostician, I realized if more people understood them, we’d stop punishing kids for what they can’t do and start supporting them for what they can.
The grocery store moment made it all click, and the Buckets & Barrels™ metaphor was born.
I created the Buckets & Barrels™ Checklist, a plain-language, visual way to explain the seven core areas of thinking defined by CHC Theory (Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory). It helps anyone recognize patterns and understand struggles. This checklist may help develop new accommodations, which will help lessen the leak in the identified buckets and barrels.
In this model:
Buckets are lifelong brain tools, helping you take in, hold, retrieve, and work with information.
Barrels represent the big cognitive engines, the deep knowledge and reasoning that power everything else.
Again, each of the seven “G’s” is represented in this system by either five Buckets or two Barrels. When a Barrel is full or a Bucket is sturdy, we function with confidence. But when a cognitive area is lacking volume or becomes overwhelmed, it can show up as struggles socially, emotionally, minute by minute, day-to-day, etc.
These identified struggles lead to the need for accommodations to work with the holes, weaknesses, for better understanding and success.
Buckets & Barrels™ is a clear, observation-based checklist that can be used in everyday settings. It helps uncover why certain tasks feel harder than they should and what may be driving someone’s behavior. By translating real-life patterns into meaningful insight, it gives a practical way to understand challenges, not just in others, but in ourselves.
My goal is simple: to make life easier, to stop or reduce the tears and struggles once we understand how our brain actually works.
“My goal is simple: to make life easier, to stop and reduce the tears and struggles, once we understand how our brain acutally works.”
— Rhonda Austin, M.Ed.
Meet the Buckets and Barrels
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Barrel 1 - (Gc) Comprehension/ Knowledge
Comprehension Knowledge is your mental library—the words, facts, and experiences you’ve collected over time. It helps you understand language, make sense of new ideas, and express yourself clearly.
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![A wooden barrel with metal bands, labeled with a white letter Gf, pouring water from a spout into a pool.]()
Barrel 2 - (Gf) Fluid Reasoning
Fluid Reasoning is your brain’s problem-solving engine. It’s how you figure things out when there’s no clear rule or answer. Gf helps you see patterns, make connections, and think logically in new situations.
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![Bonus Barrel 3 Gq Math Cognitive Ability]()
Bonus Barrel 3 - (Gq) Math Knowledge
The bonus bucket is an Educational Bucket that represents the academic math skills. These are the skills most schools measure, so when this bucket looks leaky, kids often get labeled as “behind.” This bucket doesn’t fill itself. It relies on the other buckets and barrels to pour into it.
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![A watercolor painting of a purple metal bucket with the letters 'Gsm' on it, placed on a purple puddle of spilled liquid.]()
Bucket 1 - (Gsm) Short-Term Memory
Short-Term Memory is your brain’s sticky note; it holds small bits of information just long enough to use them. This includes things like remembering directions, repeating a phone number, or holding a thought while you’re doing something else.
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![Watercolor illustration of a green bucket with the letters 'GS' on it, overflowing with water and spilling onto the ground.]()
Bucket 2 - (Gs) Cognitive Processing Speed
Cognitive Processing Speed is how quickly your brain takes in, understands, and responds to simple information. It’s about speed, not depth—how fast you can scan, compare, and decide.
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![Watercolor illustration of a yellow paint bucket with the chemical symbol for gold (Au) written on it.]()
Bucket 3 - (Ga) Auditory Processing
Auditory Processing is your brain’s ability to make sense of sounds, especially speech. It helps you hear differences between similar words, follow spoken instructions, and decode language clearly and quickly.
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![A red paint bucket with a white label and the word 'GIR' written in red letters.]()
Bucket 4 - (Glr) Long-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory is your brain’s filing cabinet; it stores information and helps you pull memories out when you need them. The material includes names, facts, routines, and how to do things you’ve learned and are able to retrieve easily.
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![A blue metal bucket with the letters 'GV' on the front, spilling water onto the ground.]()
Bucket 5 - (Gv) Visual Processing
Visual Processing is your brain’s ability to make sense of what you see. It helps you recognize patterns, read maps, understand symbols, and visualize how things fit or move in space.
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![Bonus Bucket (Grw)]()
Bonus Bucket 6 - (Grw) Reading/Writing
The bonus bucket is an Educational Bucket that represents the reading and writing academic skills. These are the skills most schools measure, so when this bucket looks leaky, kids often get labeled as “behind.” This bucket doesn’t fill itself. It relies on the other buckets and barrels to pour into it.
