lack of toe-off in 16month old

[estherderu]

dear koni and bobby,

Bobby...you are right.. I misread.
Koni... the mixup came from my not reading properly and misunderstanding that you wanted to do two things:
"I would like to train her calf muscles and 'teach' her proper toe-off to make her gait more efficient ".
My answer was the reaction to the " training of the calf muscles"bit... I forgot to mention the rest. Sorry for this.

So now a little about the toe-off in pre-swing fase...
I would try seeing in which position( in sitting or lying supine or on her side) you can see the most periferal fine motor movement in the foot in general...
I often use the sidelying position, you can see some beautiful, varied movements such as dorsalflexion in the foot and ankle whilst the child is playing in this position.
If you do not see any or little fine motor movement, I suggest you try to enthice the child to do more (toys) with her feet first.
And if this is the case you can imagine that the same movement is not possible against gravity yet.

Children are very good at compensating and using whatever possibilities they have. In a hypermobile child, or a child with extreme mobile hips (ext. rotation) we do see the gait you describe.
If lifting you foot is not possible or very difficult then the child needs to rotate your hip to get ahead.

hope this helps you on

Esther