Would you have preferred a drawing or photo of an object?

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A colleague of mine volunteers with an autism outreach group, and was preparing for an activity she was going to do with a group of young kids with ASD. The purpose was to teach kids about different animals, so she printed out some cards with pictures of animals on them and the name of the animal (e.g. cat, dog, monkey). All the pictures she chose were cartoon drawings of animals; her reasoning being that kids like that sort of stuff. As a kid, I would have preferred photographs of animals to cartoon drawings. For me, drawings don't really resemble what I perceive as the object or entity in question.

I'm wondering if I can get some input from other neurodiverse people. What would have been your preference?

For me, it depends on what eggsacly the cartoon drawings are like.

If all the cartoon drawings are drawn in the same style on cards that are the same size, then I would like them.

Same for photos. They must all belong to a recognizable set.

The disadvantage of photos under drawings is that photos may have background distractors that shift the focus away from the animals.

Actuallly, Both!

Thinking of maps I kind of like styled drawings that show only a few details. At the same time I like linking the simplified drawing to the photograph. It helps me understand the world.

I always preferred photographs or realistic drawings when I was a kid. I've never been much into caricatures of people or animals. I like them to resemble actual animals or people.

Photos or realistic drawings, but preferably photos. I could never understand why some adults think that all kids like cartoon-ish drawings of anything!

I also prefer actual photographs of things. I don't like that cartoonish stuff that adults think kids should prefer.

Photographs would be much more helpful than drawn pictures. Many kids with autism have a hard time with generalization. If they see a drawn picture of an animal, it might be difficult to connect that drawing to real-life examples of that particular animal.

The examples need to be as specific as possible to be the most affective.

Simple photographs just make more sense than cartoons in that situation... (simple meaning as close to minimalist background as you can reasonably get)

It depends, if it was an accurate drawing like this:

Then I would prefer the drawing, but if it was a cartoon, I would prefer the picture.